Katabasis
by Tsadde
Summary: Castiel's sacrifice in the mental ward left him shattered. The Winchesters try to move on, but familiar faces bring shocking news- Dean will have to find the strength to forgive as Castiel's life and their war against the Leviathans hang in the balance.
1. Road Less Traveled

Katabasis

by Tsadde

* * *

_Katabasis: (noun) A descent of some type, such as moving downhill, or the sinking of the winds or sun, or a trip to the land of the dead._

* * *

Chapter One

When Sam and Dean Winchester drove away from the Northern Indiana State Hospital, the car was filled with a silence that the younger of the two both recognized and resented. He thought for a moment that perhaps all younger siblings know _that_ silence- he imagined that for some, this is the sort of silence that falls over the dinner table during dreaded holiday reunions, or the sort of mutual quietness that's shared between brothers and sisters who become painfully aware of their parent's arguing in the next room. It's that sort of silence where words aren't needed to say that everything is crumbling down around you. That sort of silence that aches and tears away, but leaves you too petrified to break. For Sam, that silence often fell in the Impala after a gruesome day, after the life forced upon them came at the cost of human lives or severed bonds. In this impostor car they were forced to lug around, the ugliness of the entire situation was only accentuated- at least, Sam thought, when Dean was this angry and their day sucked this bad, the Chevrolet felt like home.

When they had left Castiel, the ground was damp and the air hung humidly around them under cloudy skies. Now, sunset was timidly beginning to color the clouds with its peach hues. They'd been driving for hours, Dean already hell-bent on dealing with the next case that came their way. And while his older brother thought of ganking monsters, Sam's only preoccupation rested on his brother- through the murky drowsiness, he tried to imagine what must've been going on in his brother's head when he had found Cas. Hell, Sam still didn't know _how_ he found Cas. The cut-throat explanation Dean had offered as the two high-tailed it out of the hospital, leaving the angel in their wake, barely cleared anything up. But Sam wasn't born yesterday; He knew what it meant when Dean was driving _this_ far past the speed-line through the foggy highway. He also knew what it meant when Dean didn't take the initiative to opt for rest at the nearest motel. The younger brother certainly knew what it meant, most of all, when his nervous peripheral vision could make out the clenched, tight shift Dean's jaw would succumb to when the man's temper had reached its boiling point. Dean wasn't happy, and if Sam knew anything about his brother, he knew that this outcome was not one that Dean was accepting as well as he tried to let off.

In front of the hospital, he was adamantly dismissive. In front of the wheel, when he thought Sam wasn't looking, Dean carried an unprecedented exhaustion on his face. Try as he might, Sam knew his older brother far too much to fall for the stoic, nonchalant attitude. It was clear to anyone with eyes that Castiel meant far more to Dean than he let on, and on several occasions (even at Sam's own expense) careful attention was placed on the 'profound bond' the angel shared with his brother. What Castiel had done behind their backs was problematic and horrible in more ways than one, but the chip on Dean's shoulder and the pained expressions that were so obviously painted on his face even after Castiel's death left little to the imagination. Sam could indulge Dean in avoiding hundreds of painful topics, but this one pushed the envelope- this one was just too much. Besides, he reasoned, Cas' was Sam's friend, too. Sure, they didn't have that weird connection that he shared with Dean, and they certainly didn't spend time making everyone else uncomfortable with awkward, minute-long gawking. But Dean was hasty, and lived rushingly. In moments of crisis, Castiel served more as a means to an end than as a companion- but, it wasn't as simple as that. It wasn't Dean being a monster. It was...something else entirely. Something that stood in the oddest shade of grey.

Now, Sam had a choice to make. He could opt to sit awkwardly beside his brother and enjoy his newly found peace of mind or he could urge the man to talk about his feelings and swallow the long list of insults tossed at him along the way. The safer choice, for his self-esteem, at the very least, was to keep quiet. The moral choice was to try to get Dean to open up and God knows Sam was all for it- but every passed intersection marked a train of thoughts _(Should I ask now? Does he look less ticked off now? Maybe I should give it five more minutes- or maybe I should start it off with talking about the weather or something.)_ and an opportunity missed. He went on waiting, then, and somewhere along in the hesitance, his eyelids became heavier and sleep greeted him like an old friend. Soft, sweet darkness enveloped him and he slept a dreamless sleep.

A speed bump woke him up with a start, and when his brown eyes snapped open, Sam Winchester was completely and utterly confused. In the haziness of not-quite consciousness, he stared out the car window and gawked at the sky. He could have sworn it was practically night-fall when he had fallen asleep, yet there was the sun, peaking out at him from the horizon, and the fresh air smelt of morning. Needless to say, Sam's characteristic intelligence kicked in soon enough and, deductive skills put into use, he became aware that it was, indeed, dawn. Dean had pulled an all-nighter. Bad sign. Really bad sign.

"What time is it?" he asked, rubbing his eyes,

"Almost 7," Dean replied after a slight cough, his voice gruff from lack of use.

"And you've been up all night?"

"Mmm," he hummed, "yeah, I guess so."

"Why didn't you stop somewhere?"

"What for?"

"For_ rest_?"

"It didn't cross my mind much," he explained, "besides, I can't sleep."

"You can't sleep?" Sam asked warily, a chill running through his spine as he was reminded for an instant of Lucifer, earning a sideway's glance from the driver.

"It's nothing like_ that_, I just haven't been sleepy. Don't freak out."

"Right, yeah. What was I thinking?" Sam yawned, passing his hands over his face tiredly.

The soft hum of the motor rumbled beneath their feet and Sam could make out quiet words and hushed guitar solos whispered from the car radio.

"So, uh," he began, "you hungry?"

"Nah, I'm fine."

"And you sure you're not feeling drowsy?"

"Jesus, Sam, I'm sure,"

I_'m pushing it here, but this could be going worse,_ the younger thought to himself.

"How about we stop somewhere later? You know, to sleep for a bit or grab a bite before the next hunt?"

"Sure, whatever."

"Right," he swallowed. "Okay."

Silence again. Dean wasn't going to make this easy and they both knew it. He certainly seemed less angry, but that didn't mean he was all smiles and chuckles right now. Sam could feel that Dean had long-since ruled this ride a chick-flick moment free zone._ Still, though, it's worth a shot,_ Sam thought.

"Anything else you might be. . . feeling?"

He cleared his throat, feigning causality and stretched, deliberately ignoring his brother's annoyed glare directed straight at him before returning to the road.

"Go back to sleep, Sam," his brother warned, "we're not doing this right now."

"Well, when, then, Dean?" he retorted,

"I don't know- later. Tomorrow. Not now."

"Look, I'm asking because I'm...a little worried, man."

"Worried?" he scoffed, "_you're_ worried about _me_? Last time I checked, I wasn't the one who just got the crazy knocked out of his head."

Low blows weren't doing anyone any favors. The impact of that insult staled the air and stung in the silence. Sam opened his mouth defensively but swallowed his words. There'd be no use fighting fire with fire. He took a deep breath and focused on the gathering droplets outside the window glass.

"Last time I checked," he slowly pronounced, "I wasn't the one who reunited with a best friend I thought was dead only to leave 'em behind at a mental ward."

"I already said we're_ not_ talking about this, Sam."

"How are we not talking about this? Cas, he- I mean, we saw him march into a lake, Dean! And now, months later, he's fine and dandy- or, at least, I assume he is, considering how the only moment I spent with the guy, he was plastered to a wall looking like a deer in headlights. You're telling me this doesn't strike a chord with you? That you're not pissed off as hell right now because of this?"

His argument was met with silence.

"Dean, c'mon-"

"_Look_," Dean interrupted sharply, "it's _done_. He's as safe as safe gets with him and we've got bigger things to watch out for right now. We've got to work on one problem at a time, and right now Cas is going to have to hold tight for a bit until we can figure out what hell's going on with all these Leviathans."

"Dude, that bullshit. _You_ don't even believe that. I mean, what you said back at the hospital- about all our friends being dead- what was that? How could you say that when Cas was locked up in a room a couple of yards away?"

A wave of emotion flickered in his face- anger, irritation, retort. But, in the midst, pain and undeniable regret. Gone in an instant. Gone so quickly Sam wondered for a moment if he had simply imagined what he had seen. No answer. This time, being ignored yet again brought Sam to biting on his tongue to hold back his irritation. A quiet thought in the back of his head suggested lack of sleep was making him a bit more moody than usual, but it was quickly dismissed.

"So that's it. 'It's done,' he mimicked in a gruff voice, "And what about his neighbors? Did he have any friends? He was gone for months, he must've gotten some attention from somebody- anybody at all that might be left asking questions?"

Dean hesitantly looked Sam's way before turning his focus back on the road. "He had a wife,"

"A wife? Like a _wife_, wife? The kind you get married to?"

"No, Sam, by 'wife' I meant he had a microwave oven," he snapped sarcastically, "a wife, a woman, a person, damn it."

"Geez," he sighed, both from the edge in his tone and the shock of the news. "Wait, and what'd she say?"

"She didn't _say_ anything,"

"Don't tell me she doesn't know," he begged, "please tell me you told her."

No reply.

"You didn't tell her," he stated, voice concentrated with bitter disbelief. "I can't believe you didn't tell her. You don't think a woman's going to notice when her husband goes missing? What's she supposed to do now? Did you even think about her, or is that something we're gonna deal with later, too?"

"I'm telling her what I told you," Dean explained through gritted teeth, "all our friends are dead."

"Listen, whatever you're tryi-"

"No, _you_ listen," Dean interrupted, "I already told you I didn't want you to go all Oprah Winfrey on my ass. Now either drop the subject or you're out of the car and walking from here."

Sam knew he didn't mean it. It was an empty threat in that he knew that making him walk to God knows where wasn't ever going to happen. But the bite in his voice meant that putting salt in whatever wound he was keeping out of sight would be ugly, even for the person Dean held most dear in the world. Even if Dean was happier than he could imagine to have his baby brother back in one piece again, Sam knew that snarling dogs do bite. The two only had each other since the beginning. Dean and Sam Winchester, they'd say. Always 'and,' the 'and' was never optional. All of their lives, escape it as they may have tried from time to time, they were a package deal. But Castiel was something else entirely. No one could touch Dean, no one meant more to him than family. But Cas, somehow, was the exception, the asterisk, the fine print. If it ever came down to it, Sam knew Dean would never put anyone before him- but he knew just as well that Cas had always been a close second, right up there with Bobby. And if that didn't say something, Sam Winchester didn't know what would.

A truck's loud, brass horn sounded from a distance. A family van's compact TV screen could be seen dimly from their tinted car windows, bright cartoons silently rolling. The two brothers sat in silence as the droplets gained momentum and began to downpour.

* * *

The cellphone's dial tone rang out through the silence, mumbling through the sounds of dropping rain and clapping thunder. Below the balcony floor, cars drove near and packed tightly against one another for shelter. This storm wasn't letting anyone out anywhere. Dean smirked for just a moment, basking in the knowledge of a job well done. He had, after all, gotten a room just in the nick of time and wonderfully done under false name with no complications or unneeded suspicion. The call went to voicemail, the call dropped before a now-familiar female voice intoned the first syllable of 'hello.'

One last call, he owed her that much, and maybe then he'd decide to leave a message. Ten missed calls- you'd imagine a chick with a missing husband would be dogging her cell phone down hours ago. For a moment he thought of the dark-eyed neighbors that restrained her in the living room, but the idea was quickly dismissed. If anything was next door, those parasites high-tailed it to the next hot zone days ago. That was the nature of demons, after all. Never committed to a single place.

Rapping his knuckles against the rail of balcony, he matched the beat of the dialing tone and mockingly hummed with each octave raised and dropped by Daphne's recorded message. He wondered, in boredom, if the sound of the rolling thunder could be heard in the background as he recited the name of the nearby bar and suggested a time for their meeting.

* * *

A/N: After 7x17, I found myself itching to write something in reaction. If Dean seemed a bit angsty or excessively rude, I was trying to play on that bite-me attitude he had at the end of the episode. He has a horrible habit of being a douche when he's really hurt- but don't we all? If it makes you irritated or upset at him, that's the plan- imagine it four times over for his own self-agitation. But for my fellow Dean-lovers, expect some redemption next chapter.

Reviews, darling readers, make a world of a difference to me.


	2. Forgive and Forget

Katabasis

by Tsadde

Chapter Two

When Dean raises his glass to the air scrutinizes the bubbles that rise up to the surface, he knows beyond a doubt that the time for weighing right and wrong is now. Sammy is asleep in their motel, snoring off the week he'd spent wired and the days he spent drugged with a third round of napping. The storm outside, he knows, is still there, but it's lightened, he excuses, and he'd be damned if he was going to be reverent to some gusts of wind and flashes of light after the hell he'd put up with before. But it'd be wrong, he realizes. It'd be wrong to leave now, dog at Sam until he could get him in that piece-of-crap car and drive off for good. He called, and she was coming, and she warned that she would be late. Daphne asked him to wait and he, despite his innermost urge, promised he would. Besides, he wasn't a douchebag- Sam didn't seem to think he'd handle this, but Dean wasn't monster enough to just leave a woman with a truck-load of questions and an empty home. He knew too much about broken families to do that.

He waited and didn't allow himself to think- he seldom did, nowadays. Thinking led only to one place, and one person, and that led to a big mess of things he didn't want to feel. Sometimes, it's feels best to pretend you're not feeling anything at all than grant yourself the permission to acknowledge the hurt. Sometimes, there are just some things you don't admit- not even to yourself. Not even in secret.

When his shaken from a blur of not-quite thoughts, Dean becomes painfully aware of just how tightly he was holding the small cup in his hands. Up close, Daphne looks small enough to fit into his pocket- her thin body and delicate face inspire a feeling of fragility, like ceramic plates and stained glass. _She suits him_, he admits.

"Dean," she exhales, "I'm really sorry- there was this accident outside and-"

He raises his hands, giving her a relaxed smile. "It's fine, don't worry about it. I didn't even notice the time."

"I'm glad. It means a lot to me, your coming out here," she smiles before sitting down at a respectable distance beside him. _She totally suits him,_ he reiterates, _she suits him to a freakin' tee._

He studies her- eyes slightly pink, a tinge of sadness tinting the air about him, but the air of mourning doesn't follow her. "I'll be honest with you," he began, "you're taking this all much better than I thought you would."

She lowers her eyes and lets out a shaky breath. The bartender, on cue, gingerly places an ice-cold glass of water before her. "I don't feel like it," she admitted, "A part of me feels like I always knew this would happen- that he would walk out my life just as suddenly as he left. But," she pauses. "it still hurts."

Dean nods. Nothing he can say will make it better. He's been here too many times to jokingly believe he can say something to console her.

"You know," she chuckled sadly, "when we met, I told him that God was the one brought us together."

"Yeah," he nods again. "Yeah, he told me."

"Even his name- well, he picked his name. And when I found out what it meant- I didn't think it suited him all that well- when I found out what it meant it felt like confirmation. When I met him, I didn't know if any name I could think of would fit him. He was so different, like he was new to the world. Like he had just been born then, right there, out of that river."

Her words mingle in the air for a while, as if they deserved something more than to be mixed into the noise of chatter and faint pop music behind them.

"You don't think he's coming back," she told him, staring into her water.

"I can't really answer that," he said, as if she told him of something strange and foreign,"I never said that I think that."

"It wasn't a question, though. I know you don't think so."

"I don't know."

"Be honest with me,"

"I don't _know_ if he's coming back," he insisted, "I don't even know where he went off to."

"Do you think," she pronounced carefully, "that those _things_ got him? Because of his gift?"

"The demons, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Can't say. They never really stay in one place for long, though. When he disappeared, he had ganked a whole bunch of 'em. "

"He can get rid of them?"

"Yeah," he replied, "he didn't know about it until we reached my brother. When he realized it, he said he had to make things right. That you'd understand."

Daphne nodded, a mess of chestnut hair framing her saddened eyes. He looked at her cautiously, realizing that his mouth suddenly felt dry, despite the alcohol rolling down his throat with a gulp from his glass. This felt all sorts of awful. _It's the only way_, he admitted. If he told her the whole deal, he wouldn't be able to tell what would come of it. Hell, he'd be shocked if she even believed him. He didn't even consider the possibility that she wouldn't want to pounce on him once she had learnt that he left Cas with Lucifer locked up inside him.

Then, he said something he didn't see coming. "He said he'd make it up to you. That he'd redeem himself. Whatever the hell that means."

Daphne smiled warmly. "He knows he'd never have to. I'd never think of him any less, no matter where he's gone."

A few minutes pass and people in the background coo over a popular song- Dean winces at the pure crap people listen to nowadays for just a moment's time. Then, the discomfort heightens. "So you forgive him, then."

Daphne seems taken aback for just a moment. She's endless grateful for the water she can raise to her lips. It gives her something to focus on besides her trembling hands and aching heart. "I'll get there. Right now, it hurts. It hurts _a lot_. And maybe in a while it'll stop hurting for a bit, and maybe I'll be angry for a while before it starts to hurt again. It'll take time," she admits, "but I know I'll get there- to forgiving him wholly."

"Why?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why forgive him?"

"Um-"

"Sorry. Didn't mean to pry, it just sorta slipped,"

"No. No, it's fine. I mean- I want to forgive him because I love him," she explains, "because he made the months we spent together the best months of my life. Because even if he's gone, he's gone doing what he thinks in his heart is for the best. And because I need to move on, too, while I wait, and I can't do that if I hold on to this all the while."

With restrained bitterness, he studied her from the corner of his eye. "You didn't really know him, though" he spat, lowering the bottle back down to the countertop, "for all we know, he could've been an axe-murderer."

"No," she laughed, "that's impossible."

"Nothing's _impossible_- you didn't even know the guy,"

"I know him."

"You only_ knew_ him for a couple of months." He watched her face contort into an expression of hurt before it was poorly masked. Shit. He wasn't supposed to say that. Not in this tone. Not in this direction. He wasn't even supposed to know. He wasn't supposed to dwell on this, because then honesty would start to seep in through each and every syllable.

"I don't need to spend decades with him to know he wasn't a bad person," Daphne explained. Her response was concentrated with such honesty that the hunter was taken aback. The thin woman took a sip in exchange for a melancholic sigh. "Emmanuel was the kindest person I've ever known. He was... strange and sometimes barely human. But there was the thing about him I couldn't dismiss. This loyalty he had, this sincere desire to serve others. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about, Dean, but nothing can convince me that he was a bad person."

The adoration in her voice catapulted against the emotion wall he had built and, like an tower of toy-bricks, left it wobbling and tumbling down to the floor with a breeze. The urge to believe again slammed against him without mercy. God, he didn't want this to happen. He wanted to avoid this at all costs. He could only suppress so much for so long. The very idea that Castiel was not a bad person- God, how he wanted to believe that- that the angel who brought upon so much grief and pain into his life, who's betrayal still ran deep and viperous in his veins, was not a monster. That the angel did not deserve the resentment that, despite it all, still shadowed over him.

He thought of it only for an instant. It was dismissed. He regained control and composure, swerving the direction of the conversation back on track because careful dishonesty takes time and attention. And because there are just some things you can't admit to, not even to yourself.

* * *

In the beginning, honesty was the only way. Deceitfulness first sprouted as an option through Dean, just as everything did for Castiel. Everything began, thrived, and ended through the Winchesters. Lies were something the angel did not inherently understand years ago- he viewed them as inherently diabolical, and could not fathom why humans were so keen on speaking them when they often erred in reciting them alone. A pitiful, strange thing. But that day, when they walked into a police station to investigate and Dean told the officers there that the two were FBI agents (whatever that meant), he understood that it was the very first time he stood under the cool and wicked shade of a lie. Humans lie, Dean explained, to get what they want. That is the way you become president, he said. Castiel still did not fully understand, but that was commonplace with the hunter's off-the-cuff remarks. Humor, he called it, and pop culture.

But that was the first time he implement dishonesty. The seed that fell then took to soil and Castiel, in his naivete, did not see it or feel it take root. But, sure enough, in the dark nights it spread like a cancer beneath the feet of his innocence and blatant stupidity and began to sprout. When heaven was in chaos, it grew. When Raphael rose, it bloomed beautifully. But, it was only until Crowley's audience with him that the malicious plant became audacious and spiraled about his foot, crawling up with every second that he gave the king of Hell a moment's glance. Somewhere between then, Castiel knew, some time between then and his last moment's breath had the vines of lies entangled about him, dragging him down, serving as a tripping stone he was to blind, numb, prideful to see.

In the darkness of comatose, Castiel is not honest. He is not deceitful. He simply ceases to be. In the safety of unconsciousness, all that can be felt is dulled hurting sweetly tingling about the fiber of his being- like the warm breath of a furnace as one begins to defrost. In the arms of unbeing, he cannot remember the Winchesters nor mourn his sins. He is not tortured, there, by his past. He cannot hear the blood of his brothers crying out to him, like his Father heard when Cain slew Abel. Even the chilling laughter of his brother is faint, barely audible.

A fabric of logic thrifts into his subconscious- how can you feel and cease to be? How can you hear and not exist? The angel silences the notion. This chilling darkness is his and his alone- _Do not ruin this for me,_ he commands,_ do not intercede._

_My only friends- no, I cannot call them that anymore, _he reminds himself_- The Winchesters, they are gone._ He does not know to where. He does not remember why. Everything in his mind is his brother, and the hurting makes him quickly submit to vacancy instead of thought- Oh, though, how cold. How chilling it feels, here, alone. Surrounded by nothingness. In the depths of this confinement, he hears dry sobbing. Gasps. They sound familiar- they sound his. He does not feel them rip out of his mouth, he seldom does.

After Lucifer took control of his mind, it took several hours before Castiel could induce this state of unconsciousness. A higher being, a celestial one, takes far more work to succumb to a phase of complete vacancy- the complications involved in turning _everything_ off were strenuous and baffling, to say the very least. He had begun with silence- Lucifer smiled and jested, leering at him from the opposite side of the room. Lucifer, true to his reputation, made it the bane of existence to tempt Castiel into conversation- but, he thought to himself, he knew better. The Bible may have had its fallacies from time to time, but it was completely correct in depicting Eve's mortal mistake as conversing with the devil that spoke of sweet fruit. Speak once, just once, and you're done for, Cas knew. At first, he kept silent.

Lucifer spoke of blood and hatred. He filled his little brother's vision with images of carnage and scarlet-covered wings and limbs torn to bits, sights of pure warfare. He expected it. The dark angel joked about sacrifices and past mistakes and sins too vast to count, and he reminded him of the hypocrisy and idiocy that Castiel already knew far too well about himself. He expected the taunts and the images. He knew that Lucifer would delight in recanting the past and slinging mud on his spirit and assuring him, in cruel niceties, that the line that once divided them was erased long ago with Cas' own foot. Castiel saw it coming. But the fire, the brimstone, the hurling ash. The carnage, the limbs torn about and faces dismantled in shreds- familiar faces, screaming faces, the faces of his brothers and sisters, the faces of his victims- he could not bear it. The chaos, the burning, the scarlet covered wings and the sound of spilling blood. Castiel knew it was to come. He just didn't expect it to hurt_ this_ much.

When Lucifer's attention was turned to Sam Winchester, he played coy. Sam was a child in his palms. There was nothing to worry about. He knew he would break, he knew full well he'd give in; why not take advantage and enjoy the show, watch him dance around before the curtain fall on cue? He could take his time and enjoy the game- after all, when do cats rush to kill wounded mice? The joy in the game of torture is watching the vermin's feeble attempts at surviving, as if pathetic, tiny feet can limp away to freedom, as if they aren't far past the point of salvation. But, Castiel- little, defenseless, baby brother Cas- he was a horse of different color entirely. Lucifer had no patience for this one, and the pleasure of mockery stretched thin with him- he didn't have time or sympathy to spare on a spoilt child who thought he could rip his older brother's toys away. He didn't have much humor to lend to the audacious brat who got in the way.

He'd really only _just_ gotten started- a few illusions, a couple of jests, a game or two of dress up as Balthazar or Anna and some reminders of the war in heaven and the angel was bawling like a child. But damn Cas to hell- puns fully intended, per usual with the fallen angel- for the pause. Clever, but damn him all the same. On the other side of the mental fortress, Lucifer pouts and keeps speaking- he knows he can hear him- and waits it out. He really can only last so long before the guard begins to chip, as it always does. And next time, the devil dully noted, next time he'd make sure that Cas was strapped on tight in the front row when he conjured up the image of Dean in the midst of the rubble and carnage.

"Oh," Lucifers voice whispers out past the wall, "living on a prayer-"

Castiel isn't supposed to hear him. Why can he hear him? Why is he breaking through already? This wasn't supposed to happen so fast.

"Ohh, living on a-"

Panic began to rise as the bellowing, mock-singing began to ring louder and louder in his ears. The walls that Castiel had so meticulously built were beginning to wear down with unmatched hastiness. As the attendants and patients of the hospital scurried about, curious, passing glances would only take in the sight of an inhumanely still man, eyes downcast and muscles rigid. Unmoving, unblinking, unresponsive. One girl stops for a moment, hands pressed against the glass window as she studies the blue-eyed man until she knows for certain that his chest was rising and falling- that he was, indeed, alive were he sat. His flesh stood perfectly still, he knew, but the innermost turmoil was suffice to toss the world off its axis and set the place on fire. He didn't want the fear again, he didn't want the images, the voices, the screaming violence of his past being relived before him, everywhere he looked. Out of the brightening darkness, the sound of his racing heart was becoming more and more thunderous in his ears. Castiel could feel the rushing blood, the growing adrenaline, the pounding anxiety tingles and kissed his fingertips. The numbness that protected him was fleeting away and his soul rushed towards it, desperately grasping at it as pointlessly as a child would to the wind. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to pull to one's self. There was nothing left to do now that Lucifer knew how to break through his wall- surely he'd been endlessly since Castiel put it up, but now his cruel dedication took fruit.

_I do not want this,_ he heard himself thinking- dear Lord, he couldn't hear himself thinking before- _I do not want to be alone with him again. I don't want to be awake, I don't want to be alive. Father, Father- Oh, Father, if you're there-_

Castiel was becoming aware. Blurred colors met his eyes. He could make it the smudged color of his skin, the floor, the bleached white clothes; Blurred, blurred, but there. He could see them.

_Please, take me now._

Out of the mess of colors, a hum. Out of the pseudo-sweetness of the hummed melody, the vague sight of a grinning mouth. He could smell, he could hear, he could see now. His eyes were gaining focus, he was becoming hyperaware. Everything was feeling again and everything was fear.

But then there was plunging and then there was darkness.

Everything was suddenly halted and completely, perfectly still. Something had changed. Castiel could feel it in every fiber of his being that the entire ambience of where he was, down to the smallest atom, had somehow been rewritten. He felt his body tense and raised his arms to shield his tightly clamped eyes against the brilliance of the shining sun.

"Cas, darling, you can come out now," a shockingly familiar voice, a_ different_ voice, laughed, "really, we're not going to bite- you've gotten enough of that already, hmm? Hurry and wake up now. We need to talk."

Eyes wide open, now, Castiel's mouth went dry. The familiar touch of his overcoat about his arms, back, and collar felt like a comfort he could not explain. Gone was the numbness or the strange affect of drugs on his vessel- gone, even, was the sickly white clothes he donned as a patient. In perfect opposition to sheer disturbia of a second's past, every sense at the angels disposition sang that all was well again. All was well, but nothing- nothing- made sense. In creaky raspyness he took a shaking breath and spoke.

"Balthazar."

* * *

A/N: I'm a bit delirious now, it's rather late into the morning and I really need to be asleep. Either way, we're marching along. I think I wanted to note that Daphne, all the while, only speaks of Emmanuel/Cas in the present tense; she still doesn't think he's dead or gone. She's still got this hope- wives who lose their husbands rarely ever speak in the past tense right after the loss. That, too, I made a few parallels in conversation with Castiel's bit and Dean's. I hope that came out clearly. Reviews, everyone, reviews so I know I'm doing things right.


	3. Mea Culpa

Katabasis

by Tsadde

* * *

Chapter Three

* * *

"The one and the only," joked Bathazar, his arms showily extended and grin radiating the trademark sense of grandeur that belonged exclusively and only to him.

Castiel was overwhelmed with emotion. His arms stuck, frozen still, to his sides as he stared into the eyes of someone once lost. The angel may have been deep into a state of vacancy, but he was coherent enough to know that a good number of things were amiss. The world around him wasn't any place on Earth, he knew, though it looked the part. But the vibrancy of the colors, the pure voice of the wind- Castiel was standing beside his brother in what he knew was someone's paradise.

"Where are we?"

Balthazar smiled, eyes twinkling as if about to tell a joke. "Some forest in some countryside a couple of years back- I'm a bit hazy on the details, haven't really had much of a chance to ask. This is the very personal heaven of one of our brother's many earthly flings. Surprisingly enough, there was a great deal of childhood sentiment beneath all the lace and hair dye."

Castiel nodded, eyes scanning his surroundings. Right, of course. The causality in his brother, his previously dead brother's voice, could not have fit the ridiculousness of the entire situation any better than it did now. He had spent days on end in the worst hell he could imagine, yet here he stood now in the heaven of some unnamed one-night stand. The angel sensed himself cringe ever so slightly as the ghost of a thought came to his mind- _if Dean were here..._

"How did you take me out of there alive?" he asked, then, his voice still thick with complete disbelief. His mind was racing, trying to make sense out of this- yet he internally berated himself for carrying on, unable to voice a concern of deeper importance or relevance for lack of clear thought.

"Take you out of the hospital, you mean?"

"Yes, I was trapped there with Lucifer and you've somehow managed to take me out- how could you do it? What did you do?"

"Ah, yes," he smiled sympathetically, shuffling his feet in apparent embarrassment, "'pity that. You see, if we want to be...analytical about it all, I never _actually_ got you out of _anywhere_, I'm sorry to say."

"But I'm here with you," the angel noted, "I'm away from the hospital and awake, here, with you."

"Oh, no, you're still asleep," Balthazar interrupted matter-of-factly, "almost brain-dead, actually. You see, I've been keeping up with everything that's been going on since you reunited with tweedle-dum and tweedle-dumber. After you're bit of heroics, Lucifer had you at wit's end- and then you pulled off that little catatonic stunt. So, try as we might, if our calls weren't meeting a busy line with Lucifer on the other end, you were off on a trip to the cosmos."

"_We?_"

Balthazar took a good moment to gawk at Castiel in pure disbelief. "Cas, you can't tell me you didn't notice. Focus, love, you can't be so daft all the time- it's not just you and me here, you know," he explained with a chuckle, motioning above them.

Castiel followed as directed and gave the sky a quick glance before narrowing his eyes- nobody was there, of course, what was he talking abou- Oh! _Oh._ He was overcome by immediate understanding. _How _didn't_ I realize?_ he wondered, admittedly embarrassed of his own obliviousness.

"Gabriel?" he asked to the space above of them, despite knowing he'd be unable to hear whatever the archangel had to say back. "What is _he_ doing here?"

Above them, pure light wavered and filled where clouds should have been. Every color imaginable shone brightly, radiating warmth, and twirled endlessly in the air in laps and waves. Castiel was quietly reminded of one of his Father's creations- the infinitely tossing motion above them reminded him of nothing else but of the rising and falling of whale's fins as they danced their way through the cool, clear abysm of ocean waters. Above them, Cas knew, was their elder brother- granted, he was not donning his signature vessel, but it was undeniably Gabriel all the same. This form, the 'multi-wave length of celestial intent' he had mentioned to the Winchesters longer ago than he could remember, was not a new sight to him- after all, the heaven he knew was exactly that; a universe of humanely unimaginable things. Funnily enough, this form didn't suit the trickster. The lofty mesh of colors was peaceful, a sight of wonder- nothing at all like the sadistic, grinning personality behind it. Even so, he was flooded with questions, unsure of what to say first or how to line them up in an orderly queue; If only everything could rush out, all at once, and answers could be received all the same!

"He's...hanging in there," Balthazar smiled, "been doing so for some time now, actually."

"How? When?" he began, "and you- was he the one that brought you ba-"

_Back_, Castiel finished to himself where his voice had dropped. The weight of those words became solid. _Brought you back,_ he repeated to himself, _brought you back from where I had sent you. _Guilt consumed him and he found himself tempted to pace, to run, just as he did on the hill neighboring the hospital the night prior. The simple understanding that there was no place to run, joint with shame and a deep exhaustion, served as anchor enough to keep him jolted into place.

Balthazar took in his brother's downcast expression and sighed sympathetically, pressing his hand softly against the other's shoulder. Dean and Sam had rubbed off to almost disturbing heights on the blue-eyed angel; the Castiel of years prior would have known in a figurative heartbeat that forgiveness ran deep amongst the family in heaven- with a few grim exceptions, Balthazar dully noted, but redemption was prevalent between them nonetheless. An inherited thing from Dad, he'd suppose.

"Cas," he assured him, "it's all water under the bridge now,"

"But what I did-" he replied strenuously after an uncertain pause, "what I became was inexcusable. The deaths by my hands, the selfishness-"

"It doesn't matter,"

"How doesn't it _matter_, brother?" Castiel interrupted, pained, "I killed you, with my own two hands. I deliberately and intentionally ended your life. I was so blinded by my foolish ambitions to even consider the weight of the offenses I committed against you. After everything we'd gone through together, after all the times you went out of your way for my sake."

"Cas, please. These theatrics don't suit you. As far as I'm concerned, that wasn't you. _You_ weren't calling the shots a long time before you and I got into our... slight altercation. You'd long since been gone," he explained, an undertone of wisdom and good-humor carried in his voice. "It's about time you stop being weighed down by the actions of something that consumed you long before the Winchesters found out the truth."

"But that was _me_, Balthazar."

"It wasn't. That was not the Castiel I know. That was an exhausted stranger paying the cost of trying to run when he had just learnt how to stand."

Castiel met his eyes for the first time. The earnest sound of understanding in his friend's voice was something he had long forgotten he was starving for. For a moment, gratitude and jubilation almost radiated from his soft smile.

"Now!" Balthazar said with a start, "as to your question- no, it was _not_ Gabriel who brought me back from whence I came- I'd love to tell you exactly _who_ it was, but neither one of us are very sure. I'm not sure if I need to jog your memory very much, Cas, but last we had checked, Gabriel was gone, too."

"And you have no idea who it was?"

"Haven't the slightest, dear. The only explanation we could come up with was that father's the one to thank."

"_God_ brought you back?" Castiel reiterated in disbelief.

"It would seem so," Balthazar nodded, "though he must've had a bit of a hard time fixing up Gabriel. He's been stuck as a bunch of colors for some time now. He's not strong enough to form or connect to a vessel, from what I can tell. Wherever He may be, it looks like God's been leaving things rather half-baked lately."

Castiel looked up at the sky incredulously.

"Frankly, I think I find him _much_ better company this way." The colors above seemed to flicker and churn, earning an unapologetic chuckle from Balthazar. "But that aside, Cassie, we don't have much time. Like I said, you're not awake- We've just borrowed you for a bit, but we've got to be brief before those hospital monkeys notices you haven't been breathing. Castiel, we don't know where he is or why he's showing up now, but God's alive and kicking. He's brought all three of us back, now, and left Gabriel with a message- I'm too weak right now to understand what he's saying, so while I'm chained to this vessel and he's mouthless, we're stuck. The only thing we know is that there is a way to stop Lucifer, and we're seemingly back here to do it."

"I've already stopped him," Cas interjected, "there's nothing you need to do."

"No," Balthazar corrected, "you've just gotten him angrier. You know that. Besides, if God brought us back, and only let us find you when Lucifer became a tenant in your head, we know this isn't just a series of funny coincidences. There's something he wants us to do- Granted, running errands for our father again is the very last thing I'd like to be doing with my time, but conditions are conditions, it seems."

Castiel nodded gravely. Balthazar spoke lightly and casually, his voice occasionally carrying the slightest hint of sarcasm as it always did, but his brothers' message for him was clear- things weren't over for him. Death was not yet to come. _Perhaps_, Castiel thought to himself grimly, _death would've been a better alternative._

"This shouldn't be your problem, Balthazar. I've put you through more than enough. I'm fighting Lucifer on my own, right now- what you should be focusing on is getting better. It's clear that both of you are in no state to go against anyone, much less our elder brother."

"Cassie, if we're going to do this, we need to do this _together," _Balthazar corrected. "Gabriel and I are barely on our feet, and you've just been knocked off yours- but the only thing we can do is band together through this all and find a way to set things straight."

"You've never been so noble, Balthazar," Castiel lightly noted, half-joking.

"Let's not call it a change of heart just yet. I'm _far_ more comfortable calling this a temporary resignation until things get a bit more stable. Once the collar's off, I'm done with the good samaritan role. It's gotten terribly old after a few centuries."

Before Castiel could reply, everything began to disorient. The ground, it seemed, began to sway- the brilliance of the scene around him started to spike and burn his sight. Balthazar immediately realized the obvious pain in his brother's face- holding him steady before he tumbled to the ground, he quickly shot a glance above him, desperately wishing he could know what the archangel had to say.

"Castiel," he insisted, "Cas- you need to listen to me. I thought we'd have more time, but you need to listen to me before it's too late. Lucifer probably knows we've been trying to reach you. He probably knows more than you and I put together- Cas, can you hear me?"

Through a buzz of static noise, like the scrambling of a television, Castiel was able to make out just enough to nod. "Yes," he mumbled, "yes, yes, I hear you- I hear you-"

"Castiel-"

"I can hear you,"

"Cas, no, you need to hold on. Focus-"

"I can _hear_ you, I can _hear_ you now,"

"If it's the only thing you do, don't fall into a trance again, do you understand?"

"Hear-"

The trembling angel began to notice a burning warmth spread along his skin as everything began to fade further and further into the darkness.

"We need to be able to speak to you again and-"

Everything had begun to spin about him, yet Castiel was unable to recognize when the swirling had started, lost in a mess of color and flashes of freezing cold and searing heat.

"you need to find it, Castiel, or we can't do this. Lucifer knows that, so just-"

"Oh, Castiel!" someone sang, then.

Castiel's stomach churned and sunk with a shocking halt. Gone was the muffled voice of his brother. Gone was the electric-air of paradise. His heart sank and drowned. Through chocked gasps, he knew. He was now completely and utterly alone. He was reminded of the sight of a small car as it crashed violently against a wall. Perfect remembrance, perfect memory. The ambers, the shattered glass, the smell of petroleum filling the air. Perfectly fitting.

"Wake up," a familiar, haunting voice insisted in his ears, "you've been sleeping for so long, little brother, and I'm feeling so lonely!"

Castiel's face contorted into one of pure terror as he was thrown head-first into a violent and fiery delirium.

* * *

"You're right," Sam admitted despite himself, "he _does_ grow on you." The taller of the two laughed softly as Garth drove away and left them both in soft, reserved chuckles in the parking lot. The last case was definitely an interesting one- a spirit that depended on intoxication to kill and be seen. Definitely not a pleasant experience, but certainly much lighter than many of the things the brothers had deal with in the recent past- in a sick sort of way, he felt himself sort of welcome these type of hunts. Much easier, he knew, and though always dangerous, much lighter in mood than missions with demons and souls at stake.

"He's really one-of-a-kind, I can tell you that," Dean replied, shaking his head at the slightest recollection of the endlessly awkward experiences he had with the gawky, thin man.

"I don't think I can argue with that."

"I mean, the guy literally took out a sock, man, and he-"

Before Dean could finish, the sound of his ringtone interjected. The two brothers shared a quick and worried glance as the name 'Meg' shone brightly in white, vibrating in the shorter brother's palm.

"Yeah, what's up?"

Sam studied his brother's face closely, trying to make out what he could from his expressions. The seriousness of his immediate tone was already enough to raise his defenses and keep him anxious to learn what he could.

"What?" Dean asked to the voice on the other end, "_What?_"

Sam immediately frowned, trying to listen in. Not the slighest word came out audibly from the cellphone pressed to his brother's ear.

"No. No. What the _hell_ do you mean you can't do it?"

"Dean, what's going on?"

"You can't give me that bullshit, Meg, we had a deal! You're supposed to be looking after him, not calling it quits the moment things go bad," Dean insisted, his voice unintentionally raised. He turned away from his younger brother and paced forward anxiously.

"Tell me what's going on," Sam told him, "maybe I...maybe I can help or something."

"Help?" Dean asked incredulously, turning his head slightly to him for just a moment.

"Maybe it's something I've been through, you know? I could give him pointers, I don't know, anything."

"There's nothing you can do, Sammy."

"How do you know that?"

Dean returned his attention to the phone, hurriedly tapping the speaker key as Sam stood in closely to listen. Even in the isolation of the parking lot, he was sure that anything Meg had to say wouldn't be well-received by any eavesdroppers. "Just tell me what's been going on," he told her.

"well, he'd been out cold for days-"

"you already told me that!"

"Are you going to let me _speak_, or should I just wait until you've cooled down?" her irritated voice shot back from the other end. "He's been out like a lamp- he wouldn't wake up for anything. Before that, he was going completely schizo on me but things kept getting worse. Screaming at all hours of the night, jittering around like there's something chasing him or something. The whole nine. When he knocked out- and that was hard as hell to explain- I thought it'd be easier. Wouldn't get up to eat, to drink, the expected. I played it off as long as I could but then doctors started to get antsy."

"And?"

"_And_ he's not sleeping anymore, Einstein. He's wide awake and worse than ever and I can't keep doing this!"

"Can you explain to us what he's doing?" Sam quickly asked, cutting Dean off before he could shout a long-list of anger-fueled insults at the demoness.

She took a deep breath. "He spent a couple of hours comatose. I did the best I could to keep it on the down-low, but then my supervisor saw he hadn't been breathing for a while- they hooked 'em up to some machine. He had 'em doing flips, the way he was barely keeping a pulse. They had me attend to some other freak of nature- when he woke up, I wasn't there and-"

A shaky exhale. Behind her, the muffled sound of nervous shouting could be heard.

"There's blood _everywhere_, boys. When I came in, it was already too late to stop him- he had been pulling on the IV's and-"

"_No,_" Sam heard Dean growl before violently shoving him the phone and taking a few angry steps away from him. He pressed his balled up fists to his eyes and rubbed his face, unable to speak. This wasn't supposed to happen, damn it! he silently screamed to himself, this is exactly the kind of shit I was trying to avoid!

"I did everything I could, he just kept at it- kept skewering himself over like he couldn't feel a thing and-"

"Dean, you need to calm down," Sam warned, backing away from his enraged partner.

"I tried to stop him, but he kept going- it was like he couldn't hear me. And when I tried to grab his arms, he almost fried me. I don't know what's going on but I'm not fooling anyone here. I just can't- he literally burnt the skin off my hand when I touched him. I don't even know what's going on anymore-"

When Dean snatched the phone away from him, Sam already knew what was coming. Even so, he winced the instant the first shouted insult made its way out his throat.

* * *

"You shouldn't have shouted at her like that," Sam told his brother quietly, as they drove through the dark highway. "I mean, she _is _all we've got to depend on right now, you know?"

Tonight, Dean wasn't playing any music. He wasn't speaking. He hadn't even met his younger brother's gaze once. The hand that clutched the steering wheel was white and tightly clenched.

"Maybe we should go back there now. We might not be able to do anything but maybe if we're with Cas..." Sam trailed off, sighing to himself. This was getting absolutely nowhere. He tried making small-talk and got nothing- playing blunt didn't make any difference. After Dean had nearly exploded over the phone call, it took all Sam had to have Meg calm down and not flash her way to them, with murderous intent no less, right then and there. Where was their break when they needed it? A single hunt to take their mind off things and the moment it was over, problems were already piling up seven-fold.

"Dean..." he insisted, "I know this isn't easy on you. But you can't keep trying to convince me this doesn't bother you, or that you don't care. I can't help but feel that we need to be there for him. Because, I mean, what if this is it? What is all this stuff is just the last bit of fight left in him?"

Sam knew the seriousness of the situation- as a victim of that horrendous mental plague himself, the younger brother knew this problem was too much to ignore. Dean was once again driving them off only further away from Colorado, and while everything told him this was a bad idea, the younger of the two felt helpless. He was tempted to put his foot down, grab Dean, and shake all the stupidity out of him- but all the same, Sam felt at fault; guilty because, if it wasn't for him in the first place (as always, he told himself), Cas wouldn't be hospitalized and Dean wouldn't be stuck here doing everything he could to not face his demons.

It always went back to that, for him, Sam realized. It always went back to the long-list of stupid mistakes he'd done, with all their universally catastrophic affects. He found himself thinking, again, of normal families, of normal people, as he sat quietly in the rushing car. Normal people made mistakes and moved on. Normal people didn't bring on the apocalypse or demons or Lucifer himself when they tripped up. But this wasn't a normal family, and he wasn't normal people- in the silence of the night, Sam felt a familiar thought lay upon him- he'd never be normal. This waking weariness, this phenomenally unfair hand life had dealt him, would always be his and his alone- from beginning to the very end. And now, miles away, his friend was suffering; His friend's life hung on the balance and each breath wasn't promised; Like the ultimate surge of fire before the wick wasted away and the flame was snuffed out, the light of Castiel's life was fluctuating before an irreversible close. And, it seemed, there was nothing Dean would let him do to stop it.

"Dean?" he tried again, exhausted and down-trodden, but still clinging on to the very last fiber of hope he had to spare for the day. "Tell me something, man. Don't just leave me here talking to myself."

"Sam," Dean finally replied, shutting away all hope with his tone alone, "I'm tired. I'm really tired and...and we're just not doing this. I told you before and I'm telling you again- I can't. Not now. Just stop."

* * *

My self-imposed deadline was supposed to be Thursday. I'm very disappointed, dear readers. But it's technically still Sunday- so that means I didn't go past my concrete rule of never taking more than a week to update! This chapter was difficult- a lot of things got in the way, I had a tough time trying to focus in the midst of work, babysitting, and a junk load of stuff. But here it is. Review and let me know what I was able to pull off, won't you? Also, these last few chapters have been pretty heavy. Bare with me just a bit longer, eventually things will lighten up- God knows we deserve it.


	4. Labour's Lost

Katabasis

By Tsadde

* * *

Chapter Four

* * *

When Castiel woke up, he did not know that he had fallen asleep. It was only until Meg had told him, from a bizarrely resentful and careful distance, that he had been sleeping for almost a week uninterrupted that the angel realized that, somewhere, his two brothers were disappointed in him. He did not remember why, nor when, but he had submitted to his weakness yet again; he had cut himself completely off and submerged into his almost paraplegic state once more.

_But this doesn't make sense,_ he thought to himself, _the last time- the last time, I knew. Something inside me was still aware of the fact that I was alive. This time, I don't remember a thing. I can't piece together anything since speaking to Balthazar._

It was then that Castiel's blue eyes fell upon his arms. Meg watched in cautious curiosity as the once-divine being gawked at his arms as if the appendages that hung off his shoulders weren't his to begin with. Didn't he remember anything? His eyes were wide open- the movements weren't easy, she remembered- it required thought, actual physical mechanics, inhuman restraint. The way that angel so violently and desperately mutilated himself a few days prior- it required unimaginable insanity.

But he did not know, and he did not remember, and the arms that lay upon thin, white hospital sheets were scarred and damaged. Whatever had happened must have been the very definition of horrific- the deep punctures along his forearm were testament to something he couldn't imagine; What could've brought this on? What in God's name was he fighting?

"Do you like?" Lucifer asked nonchalantly, interrupting the silence and causing Castiel to jump, "I'm a fan of piercings myself, but I didn't think you'd be able to work 'em so well, baby bro."

Castiel turned to the hallucination with a quick snap of the neck. When their eyes met, Castiel stared at him the way he did all foreign things; he tried to decipher, to understand. And then, the images flashed like a film before his eyes; He recounted everything, absolutely _everything_, with god-like clarity and perfection. The crying, the heaving, the demons in his head- the hacking, the slashing, the desperate, surging, surging need to leave- to vanish, to dream, to sleep. To forget and drink deep of the sweet poison of death, and by doing so end the diabolical torture he had been submitted to. The sheer agony- oh, the horrific of heartbreak of those images; the sight of the person that meant the very most and the screams in that own voice and the utter helplessness of-

"You know, you look much cuter when you're sleeping. But I guess all older siblings think that, right? And Dad- Hell, I'm sure He loves it _most of all_ when you're out like that. No fussing, no tantrums. Just peace and quiet."

Sorrowful, cobalt orbs turned away immediately from the devil. He recited a secret mantra, promised himself he would not submit, he would not fail; He would be strong. Strong. For Balthazar, for Gabriel. For them- for..._just_ them.

"Oh, what's the long face for?" Lucifer asked, sitting beside Castiel on the small bed and gently poking his nose. "I thought you'd be _happy_! I've been sitting here, waiting for you to wake up- don't you see? I'm the only one who's here with you, even now. Bro, I really thought you'd be more grateful. You're being quite the downer, man. You haven't been a very good host, but here I am, all the same, and all I get is puppy eyes."

Castiel's hands tightened into fists around the rough sheets. Without his permission, his body began to tremble with restraint.

"What's going on, Clarence?" Meg asked wordily, more concerned for herself than him. "You've gotta fill me in here, I can't keep this up if you're gonna keep going bananas at the drop of a hat."

"Yeah, Cassie, fill her in," cooed his older brother, "tell her how you're giving me the silent treatment, even though we both know how that's going to end."

"Castiel?"

"It-it's nothing," he replied shakily.

"Ooh! Tell her about all those times you've gotten off the deep end, about how you'd leave me hanging right in the middle of our games."

"What do you mean it's 'nothing?' I can _feel_ something's off, tell me what's going on!" Meg gripped his arm and, with a violent yank, tried to catch his attention when he did not acknowledge her growing panic. "Don't just daze off on me, tell me what's happening- _I'm_ supposed to be watching _you_, honey, not the other way around."

"Or you could skip right to the juicy stuff. Tell her about the things we see that she can't. Tell her about the stench, you know, and the special effects- the whole schbang. I mean, I _am_ doing this just for you; you could at least show some recognition. Credit where credit is due, you get me?"

Castiel looked up into Meg's dark eyes and found no sympathy there, no spark of humanity shone in those deep orbs. He missed that, he realized then, missed that terribly- that hope, that delicate faith, that fragile glimmer of life that only humans were capable of having. He missed the shimmer of life that trembled lightly in caring eyes.

"Or should we try to show her, Cas?" the maniacal angel chuckled, "why don't we give it a try? I'm sure that'll be fun for the both of us- Let's start with your favorite! What do you say? This one gets you every time- we just plop into that messy little head of yours and grab your favorite little plaything-"

"_Castiel_, answer me, damn it. Are you listening?"

"We grab onto those memories," he laughed heartily, pantomiming a grip, "and then we get him to speak for a bit. Chew you out, the usual, and right when you've had enough, right when you're just angry enough, we let 'em have it. What did we do last time, Cas? What was it that got you in stitches, huh? Was it the part where we had you watch as Sam beat him to death? Or the bit where we watched him get skinned alive? Or was it the time that-"

_"Enough!"_

Castiel's eyes widened with the full realization of what he had done. He'd spoken. He'd finally lost. Lucifer grinned at him beamingly, bemused beyond words. "What's wrong? Not having fun?"

"_Enough_," Castiel begged, "Enough. I am exhausted, brother. You have done more than enough- you've fought against me, you've tormented me, you've done everything you could to prevent me from defending myself against you. I...I cannot keep fighting you. Leave me be."

Lucifer pouted and sighed with mock-sympathy. "Wow, you _must_ be tired. Cas, you know me more than that, don't you? Do you _really_ think anything you have to say will change anything?"

Castiel's eyes darted about, trying to make out what he could of his brother's expression.

"Cas, when has _anything_ you've _ever_ said made any difference? To me, to Gabriel, to our Father? Man, bro, you couldn't even make those two gutless apes listen to a thing you had to say- and you think that's going to change now?"

"No, you're lying-"

"Lying? Do you even hear yourself? Who's really trying to be delusional here, hmm?"

"You're wrong."

"Wrong- sure, right," he scoffed with heavy sarcasm. "Like those two baboons _didn't_ use you like a cheap whore- stomping their feet at you whenever they needed to get off. Like I'm lying when I say they _never_ wanted you around when you _couldn't_ be waiting on their hands and feet, like some half-assed bell boy. Castiel, c'mon- you know as well as I do. Those two don't give a damn. They never did, and they never will."

"You don't know anything. We were like family once, we-"

Castiel was taken aback. How could he be so gullible? He had fallen head-first into Lucifer's snare. This was _exactly_ what he wanted. To have him believe the devil, to have his head so warped up in fantasies that he couldn't get through with his brothers in need. "This has been more than enough. I will not humor you any longer."

Lucifer jumped annoyingly, causing the wobbly bed to rise and fall violently, much to Castiel's discomfort. "But we were making _such_ progress- I mean, we even got that bitchy babysitter of yours out of the way. See? She's gone! We made her uncomfortable enough that she couldn't stand what you're dispelling- It's just you and me here, baby brother. No need to hold back or feel embarrassed."

"No," Cas hissed, "_no_. This is the first and the last time I waste my breath on you, brother. You are an enemy to our father, to our brothers, and to this world- you haven't the right nor the place to speak to me as you do."

Lucifer snarled and, faster than the younger angel could account for, sprang across the bed. His calloused hands wrapped around a sore and weazing throat. "Don't you _dare_ talk to me like that. You seriously think you have the balls to tell me what I can or cannot do? _You_? A worthless excuse for an angel who couldn't fucking get heaven straightened up after it was practically handed to you on a silver platter?"

Castiel coughed, unable to understand how a mere delusion could touch, could feel, so horribly against him. "You- you are just a shell of what you once were, brother," he panted out, "and I certainly don't need lessons on audacity from _you_."

"Real clever, Cassie," Lucifer laughed callously, pressing harder and harder until his own fingers colored with exertion. Then, late enough to discomfort, he unclamped the smaller man's neck and sat away from him, bored with the trick of feigned suffocation. "You seem to forget that I'm the one who's going to be set free and you're the one who's killing himself in a nuthouse."

Castiel gasped weakly for breath, skin damp and pale. His eyelids grew heavier with each passing moment. "You're wrong. I will not let you go free- if this is the only thing I can do, I will prevent you from hurting the Winchesters anymore than you already have."

Lucifer smiled wickedly as the lights began to flicker above them. "Really now?" he whispered, pressing against the weak man's ear. Castiel watched in steady anxiety as everything began to melt around him, dissolving into the deepest black he had ever seen. He was reminded of black blood. He remembered ooze and monsters inside him- he remember a watery burial.

"Castiel, I'm just trying to make you see how foolish you've been acting. You've changed, little brother, you've let those two children completely destroy you. You seriously think you have a fighting chance- but for what? What are you even fighting _for_?"

Castiel looked into his brother's eyes as he began to feel the sore skin in his arms burn. A fire he could not see began to sear his skin and, despite the pain, his hands frantically rubbed against the already sensitive skin. Cool wetness began to rise from the ground, pitch-black water rising and rising up past the bed's legs and onto Cas' body.

"You have nothing to fight for, little brother. You've lost the war in heaven. You've let me in. I'll find my way to Sam one way or another- even if that means borrowing you for a while."

"I won't let you-"

"_Let_ me? By the the time we're through, you're going to be _begging_ me to use you. I'm going to _destroy you_, kiddo. I'm going to make you wish you'd never stepped foot into this world. And you know what the best part is?"

Lucifer raised an open hand to Castiel's hand and slowly, deliberately slowly, reached for his sweating temple.

"The very best part is that those two won't do a damned thing to get in my way. They've left you here, Cassie, right here in my arms. Why do you think they haven't come back yet? Really, brainstorm for me, genius- why aren't they here? _Because they don't give a shit._ They locked you here and threw away the key- and if I rip you to shreds right now or have you begging for mercy for years on end, it won't make a difference to them. You want to protect this plot of dirt for them? You want to keep them safe? Trust me, they were singin' hymns the second they high-tailed it out of here. No one's coming back to save you, Private Ryan. It's just you, me, and the last inch of life you still think you're hanging off on. And believe me when I say you better strap in for the ride."

* * *

_This is becoming old already_, Sam angrily complained to himself. Any more of these silent temper-tantrums on the road, and he wouldn't need threats from Dean that he'd walk the way- he was sure he'd jump out of the moving car himself. With Bobby's ghost in the backseat, and a fuming older brother at the wheel, the youngest of three was at a loss of what to do- and the overall moodiness in the air had infected him like a virus; he was at his wit's end, ready to pounce on the first unfortunate thing that crossed his way.

"So that's it? I finally get through with you idjits, and this is how you act? Way to make a guy feel missed."

Sam breathed heavily. "Don't tell that to me- I've been dealing with this for days."

Dean raised an eyebrow apprehensively and his mouth twisted into a frown as he bit his tongue. Sam knew that Dean was hurt, and the two brothers were suffering horribly at the thought of the only true father they'd ever known putting himself in harm's way, even in death, for their sakes. Even so, sympathy can only run so deep. _He's acting as if he's the only one with problems here_, Sam argued to himself, _I get it. I really do. But, damn, I haven't done a thing to him. And what am I supposed to do? I've tried talking, I've tried giving him space, and nothing. Absolutely nothing._

"Dean," Bobby called slowly, "I know you're not happy with my decision but-"

"Your '_decision_'?" Dean spat incredulously. "Bobby, choosing what to have for lunch is a freakin' decision- not gallivanting around, messing with the shit-load of problems we have down here, when you should be at rest."

"Hey, we're a family- you seriously think I was gonna leave you two numbskulls behind to fend for yourselves? Against Dick? Against all those damned Leviathans? What else was I supposed to do, huh?"

"You were _supposed_ to be dead, Bobby!" Dean growled back, voice raised and offended. "You were _supposed_ to be resting, like you deserved- but you just _had_ to avoid it. You had to come back for us- as if we hadn't lost enough already!"

"Pardon me?" the ghost replied angrily, "I did this for _you_. For _both of you_ and-"

"And no one _asked_ you to come back!"

Silence immediately filled the small car as the phantasm was taken aback. The hurt was clear in his face as the edge in his son's voice cut through him like a shard of glass. Sam swallowed slowly and let out a hot breath, unsure if he should punch his brother in the face now and console Bobby after, or save that for when he wasn't steering the car. Bobby turned his face away from the mirror and looked, pained, to the passing sights through the window.

"I came back to help you both, Dean. I thought you'd understand- I thought you'd figure that you'd do the same exact thing for Sam if you were in my place. But I guess not."

"Bobby, no, that's not what I meant-"

"Oh, no, I get what you _meant_ loud and clear. I really do. Just guess I was kinda hopin' you'd be happier than those feather-assed idiots were when I came back is all, but maybe that's asking for too much."

The pain in his voice melded into the quiet air again, before Sam's face was one of confusion.

"Wait," he spoke for the first time through the argument, "_what?_"

"What? I mean, I finally get through to you guys and then I'm treated to this asshole-"

"No, I mean...what did you say after that? About angels?"

Bobby's face turned into one of surprise. "Damn...I didn't want to get into that yet."

"Get into what, Bobby?" Sam asked slowly. "What is it you're not telling us?"

The image of the older man looked hesitant and upset. He shrugged with a deep sigh and leaned back against the cushion of the car seat. "When I died and...when I side-stepped my reaper, I got some help. Those guys are experts, you know? They really didn't want to leave me with much of an option- figures you two would give me a bad rep upstairs. I didn't _want_ to go, but he didn't give me much choice. So, I ran- and when he almost caught me, I was zapped somewhere else."

Bobby cast a careful eye at Dean, who was watching him with shocked and focused concern.

"It was Balthazar,"

"But he _died_," Dean replied.

"Well, I think we all know death isn't always a deciding factor by now. I don't know the how's or why's, boys. All I know is that one second I was running for my life, and the next I was in some hitchhiker's dream-come-true."

"What did he want?" Sam asked carefully.

"He was the one who helped me escaped. When I asked, he avoided the question- said that I just needed to go back to you guys. That this was just a temporary arrangement before I got my body back-"

"Got your _body_ back? Can he even _do_ that?"

Bobby shrugged. "Beats me. It sounded like a good deal, and he wasn't asking for my soul or nothin'- after Crowley, I made sure of that. All he asked was that I stay by you two, like that wasn't the plan all ready."

"But I don't get it," Sam said, "what could he possibly gain from bringing you back or giving you a body? It just doesn't make sense- we know the guy. He spent his time down here trying to manage human souls like they were up for sale on Craigslist. This isn't like him- like any angel, really. Except-" Sam came to a thought and kept a moment of silence, before turning a worried glance at Dean, who replied with a hesitant and doubtful one. "Except maybe this has something to do with Cas."

"I don't really know," Bobby offered from the back once Dean looked away and kept quiet. "But that's what I thought, too, and when I asked him about 'em, Balthazar just got all fidgety and said he'd explain later. But it got me thinking- Cas is back. I knew that the moment I died- I dunno how, but I could just feel it. And maybe...well, maybe he wasn't as screwed up in the head after all. I mean- how many times has the guy been brought back? That doesn't happen, guys. We knock an angel off their feet, they're dead and gone. We've done it before. But Cas- well, there has to be something special about 'em if he keeps popping back up."

"Well, the guy's locked up right now. I don't know what much he could possibly do for us now," Dean remarked with a hint of emotion Sam couldn't quite define but knew he didn't like.

"Maybe that's it then- maybe this is just proof that we need to go back there, then."

"What are you so eager to go back to, Sammy? Do you _want_ Lucifer back in your head?"

"Are you joking? Dean, you know that's not why I've been pushing the issue- we just can't leave Cas behind, man. I've been feeling it since we left and it hasn't eased up since. We need to be there for him."

"We _need_ to deal with bigger things right now is what we _need_ to do."

"What the hell is your problem?" Sam accused, "Why are you so set-against being their for him?"

"This has nothing to do with him-"

"This has _everything_ to do with him, Dean! You don't know what it's like to have the Devil in your head. You don't know how badly it hurts- heck, _I_ don't even know the half of it. Whatever he did to me isn't half as bad as what we all know he's doing to Cas. Yeah, what Cas did back then was bad. Taking those souls, trying to be God, lying to us- it was fucked up. I _know_ that. But I also know that I've made plenty of mistakes in the past, and you found it in yourself to forgive me- and you've messed up a lot, too, and Bobby and I never held it against you. Why is Cas any different?"

"I'm not holding anything against him," Dean replied angrily, trying to end the conversation.

"Is that why you don't want to talk about it? Why you don't even say his name if you can help it? What's going on with you? This isn't how we do things, Dean, and you know it- what happened to the way we always did things? When Rufus died what did we decide? You said it yourself- forgive and move on. That we'd all screw up, but we'd never have an excuse to not pick ourselves up and keeping building from the ground up."

"I already said I'm not holding anything against him, Sammy. Drop the speech already- He's just in the past now. He's dealing with something tough, I get it. I don't envy the guy and I'm thankful for what he did for you- but we can't keep sticking to what's already happened and what we can't help. The only thing we can do is move on."

"Move on? C'mon you can't tell me you were chugging that coat along with you all this time so you could move on-"

"Drop it, Sammy," Dean warned.

"No. No, I'm not dropping it- not when you're saying you don't even _care_," Sam replied, "you can't sell me that. A part of you always wanted him back- I mean, you're _you_. You pretend like it doesn't bother you. Like nothing ever gets to you. You slap some salt on the wound, make it out like it doesn't hurt, and keep limping on. But we know you, Dean. Bobby and I _know_ you and we _know_ that you haven't been the same since you lost Cas."

Dean stopped the car, slowing down to a halt as he maneuvered his way to the side of the highway. He kept silent, but exchanged quick and confused glances with his family. He took a deep breath and tossed and turned- running his hands down his face, through his hair, opening and closing his mouth, unable to speak.

"You know he doesn't deserve what's going on over there," Sam continued quietly. "You know _no one_ deserves what he's going through."

"I know that," he finally admitted slowly, "I know all of that."

"Then what are you holding against him, Dean?"

"Nothing. Everything. I don't freakin' know-"

"But you can't forgive him," the oldest man pointed out gruffly.

His resentful silence affirmed the accusation.

"Why can't you?" Bobby asked carefully. "What's making this so hard for you?"

"I just can't."

"But why? You don't hold anything against Sam- don't know if I can say anything about me, to be frank- but why is Cas any different?"

"I don't _know_, just come off it!" he replied snappily. His listeners were taken aback- the simple words were delivered with such nasty irritation that his family knew that the conversation was over. His brother, accustomed to Dean's habits and tones, was surprised to find himself unable to tell what emotions were fueling the agitation in his voice. "Look," he spoke under his breath, trying weakly to repair the previous, harsher tone he used against his family, "I've tried, okay? I've _tried_ to forgive Cas, but I just can't and I don't know why. I don't like it. I already know what you guys have to say- but nothing's going to change."

"Well," Sam offered after a long pause, "maybe that doesn't matter right now. Maybe we can cross the bridge when we get to it. But as for now, you know that we can't keep running away from this problem. We know Balthazar is back, and we at least know that something's going on that's making it so everything keeps tying together- Cas coming back, Bobby getting through with us, and Balthazar, whatever he's planning."

Dean nodded carefully and slowly, not completely enthusiastic but, secretly and unacknowledged, just ever so _slightly_ relieved and, more frightening than that, riddled with anxiety. Resting his head against the steering wheel, he took slow and steady breaths, trying to get his thoughts together.

"Besides," his younger brother continued with a much lighter tone, earning a curious glance from both of the other men in the car, "I've been keeping tabs on the area, and something's up over there. I meant to tell you- random healings everywhere, prayers coming spontaneously true- I don't know if this is a good or bad sign, but it's all the more reason to go back there and pay Colorado a visit."

"That's a start," Bobby agreed with shared hope, watching carefully to study Dean's reaction.

All eyes on him, Dean nodded, his face out of their sight. Taking a slow and much-needed stretch, the hunter grabbed hold of the keys and gave the engine a start. As the small machine began to tread forward and turn, Sam found himself smiling in relief.

"There's nothing left to talk about, then," Dean said more to himself than to the other passengers in the car, "we're off to get Cas."

* * *

I really enjoyed writing this chapter, for some reason. I actually finished it yesterday around noon, but wanted to wait just a bit more- not to torture you! Just so I could do some good editing and re-writing. Also, it's a happy coincidence that Bobby's ghost was addressed in last week's episode- I had written the plan to this fic, chapter by chapter, a while ago, so when I go to the events of this one, I saw I could do some slightly bending to better go on with the show. After this, though, it's all a spin-off from here!

I hoped you guys liked this chapter, everyone. As always, reviews make the world goes round!


	5. Well Wrought Urn

Chapter Five: Well-Wrought Urn

* * *

Green eyes rose and turned away from the road to look to the passenger of the car- if his long-standing silence wasn't testament enough, Sam's slightly agape mouth and the light, soft snores that came murmuring out of it were proof enough that his younger brother had fallen asleep. Even Bobby, though awake, seemed to be somewhere far away; his chin propped tiredly in his palm, his focus cast towards the passing scenery and thoughts of the future. The soft rock ballads that Dean had been ignoring were suddenly much louder than he remembered, and their subject- a love song, of all the damn things, really- made him cringe. He skipped the song with anxious speed. The last things he needed to be hearing were melancholic hymns about relationships lost.

He hadn't been paying attention for a while now, Dean realized. The hunter could not recall how he got to the highway he found himself in, or what intersections he had past- it didn't matter, really. Dean shuffled his feet lightly and quickly before returning them to the pedals. As he drove them all closer and closer to the very place he wanted so badly to avoid, thoughts of the friend- the person, rather, friend was too complicated a term- he left behind loomed in on his mind and cast a shadow on his mood. He knew that his irritable behavior was getting on Sammy's nerve- hell, he didn't blame the guy. If he was in his brother's shoes, he'd want to right-hook himself, too. But what was he supposed to do?_ All these prissy feelings and shit_, he reasoned, i_t's too damn complicated. It always is._

When Castiel walked into his life, Dean had lost faith in people long ago. If the angel was meant to come into his life to prevent that loss, he was a good number of years too late. For the hunter, faith began to wane since the moment he took his first steps. Any innate hope in the future began withering up in flames on the very night his house and mother did the same. But even for the weeks and months and years to come after the two had met, Dean was more damaged than he'd ever been before. He was't just sullied by the usual cynicism of a damaged youth- he had seen hell and worse, he had experienced unimaginable things, and he had suffered through the systematic, excruciating pain of disillusionment. Hindsight, they say, is 20x20 vision. Perhaps, in retrospect, Dean was more to blame than he'd like to admit, or maybe Cas just came into his life at a really bad time, but Dean had lived years and years without faith- and when the angel first defied those around him, and proved to the wretched man that there was something he saw in him worth fighting for, Dean Winchester began to have faith in something again. And maybe that was the first mistake.

A pothole in the road caused the car to wobble and jump, startling Bobby and stirring Sam, but not for long. The moon paved the way to Colorado courteously, but her company did little to lighten his mood. His mind had wandered to only one place, and there it would stay, now and in secret, because no one was around to ask any questions. He had tried to forgive Castiel for what he had done to them. But when he thought of the lies, the pain, and the shared guilt the two men split between themselves, he was filled with an empty sort of anger, the kind that gnaws hungrily at the bones. Dean knew how despicable he was- prone to hypocrisy, an expert at lying and cheating his way out, he made douchebaggery a perfect profession. He knew that. And he knew he was fucked up enough that he would always be the last person to stand at a pulpit and start spitting sermons. He was no one to talk about morals- though he did- and he was no one to judge the tripping-stones of those around him- though that didn't stop him. But he thought Cas was better than that. Inexplicably and admittedly unfairly, Dean had a blind and unshakable resolve that Cas was and forever would be better than that. Better than him.

There was something about the blue-eyed, small-framed angel that invoked a dedication in the older of the Winchesters. At first, it felt more like a dedication to beat the shit out of him, Dean thought to himself, recalling all the irritations and conflicts at dealing with a stoic soldier from above with a serious God-complex. But the two shared a bond beyond understanding- a deep appreciation that ran just as deeply, but somehow entirely different, than it ran with either Bobby or Sam. He couldn't name the feeling, he didn't feel all too natural lingering on it enough to even contemplate embracing it- but he'd be damned if anyone could say he wasn't grateful, at least remotely, that the angel latched onto his whacked up life like the plague.

When it came to Lisa, Dean could love her just fine. He loved her grace, her loving kindness, he loved all she stood for- comfort, security, family, normality. Perhaps, he knew, he loved what she stood for much more than he actually loved _her_. But when it came to lovers, he knew how to love just fine. And when it came to flings, he managed perfectly. When it came to friends, there were some bumps- but his fierce devotion and come-hell-or-high-water resolve usually smoothed those over just enough for the amicability to keep flowin'. Dean didn't have to explain a thing when it came to Sammy- Sam would always be a part of Dean, more important to him than anyone or anything in this universe. He'd sooner hurt or separate from his brother, Dean thought, than he'd cut off his right hand with a freakin' _spoon_. But when Castiel was involved, something about him stirred a load of things he buried long ago and with good reason.

If he wanted to get all Freudian about it, Dean thought to himself, pursing his lips as per habit, it probably had something to do with his old man. Around Cas, he felt a bit more like him, and in all the ways that he hated most- the man became consumed with being a hunter, amongst other vices. It was part of the job, it happened to all of them. But around John, nothing was worthwhile. Words of praise or gratitude, displays of affection or wholesome pride, were just not possible. With his dad, you wouldn't be told you did a good job, you wouldn't run it over with a chick-flick moment, with hugs and tears and inspirational speeches. You just felt it. In small glances or nods, or, on rare instances like shooting stars, a pat on the back. You either picked it up, or you didn't. And if you didn't, you had only yourself to blame. And then he disappeared, and Dean didn't know what he was supposed to have felt- if anything. Dean didn't know if there was some horrible memo he had missed.

Hallmark cards and sappy movies not worth watching say that the things that you didn't express are the same things you regret most of all. When Dean followed a trail of black and musty blood-red to a lake of water, and when he wrung the water out of a filthy overcoat, and when he threw it in the trunk of his car, something like that came to mind. And that was all Dean was willing to offer himself on that in the quiet ride through the Southern highways. There were still things he didn't understand, and things he didn't touch, and, yet again, things Dean just couldn't admit to- not even to himself.

* * *

Far away, in a land of sweeping grass, the scent of mountains lingered in the air under a divinely colored sky. Castiel sat weakly on the damp grass of the paradise he had been adjourned to. Above them, the skies grumbled- Gabriel was not particularly close to his younger brother, nor particularly fond of him after all the grief he and his friends had caused him down on Earth- but, even so, the sight of the battered and defeated angel was unwelcome.

"You can't _give up_, Cas," Balthazar reminded softly, almost desperately, "we can't do this without you. We asked you not to do this, Cas. We told you, you needed to stop before it got to this."

"I'm sorry," he murmured in response with a slight tremble in his cracking voice.

"Can you feel Lucifer on the other side?"

"Yes."

"Can you hold on much longer? We need to talk about-"

"No," Cas interrupted, "I can't."

Balthazar frowned. "You've been dispelling so much of your grace. You've been doing that intentionally, haven't you?"

"For you. For when I'm gone. It's been working, hasn't it? You're stronger now."

"Castiel, I didn't want this. Not like this-"

"I am _losing_, Balthazar. I can barely stand to breathe- how can you expect me to do much else? To fight? This is all I can do to aid you."

"What happened to setting things right?"

The sickly angel laughed sadly. "I think that ceased being a choice for me a long time ago, brother."

"Castiel, you have _always_ let your conscience guide you- much more so than either one of us. We need you. Not just us- those two. The Winchesters. They need you." When Castiel was not moved, his brothers knew things had gone desperately wrong. He maintained reserved silence, closing his eyes slowly and wearily. Even in this paradise, his spirit was completely and utterly drained. Even here, he could feel the dull hurting in his arms and legs, the whirling ache in his head. He was, for all his denial and struggling, on the losing end.

"He isn't really there, Cas" the angel reminded him, "if it makes any difference at all, you know that Lucifer is still in his cage."

"You know as well as I that it is not that simple."

"I've got to give it a shot, don't it?" his brother joked sadly, the sound coming out of his mouth sounding eerily more like a reluctant sob than a chuckle. "Cas, you've come back from grimmer things before. You've got to remember that- you're Dad's favorites, now, darling. You've got an all-star team rooting for you back home. You're no supposed to let us down- underdogs always win, you know?"

The advice did not aid him. The younger of the two cringed, breathing in deep for a while. "You cannot begin to understand how deplorable I have become. I cannot help you, nor Gabriel nor the people I once believer were my friends-"

"They are still your friends," his brother reminded weakly, unsure as to why he found himself supporting the very vice he hated in his brother. He didn't like the fascination, the unhealthy dedication- but if that's what it would take...

"They..." Castiel spoke aloud, as if dreamily reciting words in a familiar script, "they are not my friends anymore. They, I think, never truly were. I cannot help this world- I can't even help myself."

The prayer that rung out in Balthazar's innermost senses came graciously on cue, right when his mouth had gone dry and his heart had sunk at the sight of the vacant orbs that stared back at him with the utterance of those tragic words.

"You've got to go," Castiel noted.

"Yes- yes, it's your friends. Castiel, can't you stay with Gabriel? Try to get through with him?"

"You know I wouldn't be able to, even if I tried."

"Right," he said, "right. Cassie, just promise me that you-"

With that, Castiel was gone. Wether or not his abrupt departure was Lucifer's doing or his own withdrawal into almost-death, the worried brothers did not know. When Balthazar cursed angrily and left to tend to the Winchesters, Gabriel felt his stomach drop- he didn't understand it. Didn't have a stomach. The irritated angel just did. With a booming thunder-like grumble, he testified to the empty planes that he was quickly meeting his wit's end. Vessel or no vessel, he could no longer wait on his brothers- now was the time to start poking fingers, and the archangel and jokester knew he was, at the very least, very good at that.

* * *

"How the hell did you even _get_ into this situation?"

"Like we know!" Dean yelled defensively, "one moment we're driving, the next we're slamming head-first into a damn sea of demons like it's a fuckin' prom-"

"Oh, how quaint- how perfectly quant of you to get into the _only_ bloody predicament we all needed right now-"

"Guys?" Sam offered, "I kinda don't think now's the time."

As if on cue, the small car shook with a violent jerk to the side. The Winchesters, ever blessed with long limbs, braced themselves with pressed grips to the walls of the car as the vehicle was rolled completely over it's top. The impact of the toss was enough to disorient them all, and while Bobby could not feel the fall's bite, even he felt a growing panic rush through his not-quite veins. Surrounding the shabby cars was a hoard of people with pitch-black eyes. Balthazar straightened the car up again, roughly shaking the men inside before they stumbled their way out and onto the open-air. Sam looked back quickly- they were on a road, out of all things- not a plot of land, not an empty parking lot, a well-used, truck-filled road.

"Dean, we've gotta get out of here," he told his brother nervously, backing up slowly and cautiously as the diabolical crowd closed in.

"Tell that to feathers, not me," Dean grunted as he reached for his knife right in time to stop one demon in its tracks as it hurled itself to them. With a loud groan, the body fell to the floor but was quickly trampled by its company.

"Uh, now's the time to do something, just an FYI," Bobby reminded the angel nervously.

"I don't think I can-"

"The hell you mean you can't? Then what did you come for in the first place?" Dean yelled back after another demon fell to the ground with a loud thud.

"I can't take you _far_, not like this."

"Then don't take us far, just take us out of here!"

With that, the angel held onto the brothers and mustered the strength to raise them out of where they were- but failed. No sooner had they vanished from one spot, they popped back up only a few yards away. If they weren't about to get nuked by demons, Dean would've laughed.

"Oh, you've _got_ to be shittin' me-"

"I'm _trying_, you mongrel, don't get cross with me!" With that, the angel was able to pull-through, and the trio, accompanied by the image of Bobby a few moments later, found themselves in a filthy and abandoned building's basement. Musty hot air filled the empty floor and the dampness struck uncomfortably against Dean's skin.

"Where are we now?"

"Only a bit ahead, far too close for comfort, really," Balthazar admitted, slightly out of breath. "They'll probably be here soon."

"And there's nowhere better we could've gone?" Sam asked, though not with the same edge his brother was donning. He had been sleeping deeply when the demons attacked, and while he was still a bit dazed, he knew well enough to respect the angel that saved their hides.

"Not just yet. I've yet to become accostomed to Cas' grace, I'm afraid."

"Cas' _grace_? You mean his angel mojo?" Dean asked loudly, "don't tell me that son of a bitch is-"

"He's alive," Balthazar quickly explained. "He's still alive. Just barely, but we haven't struck out quite just yet."

Sam cast him a worried look, drowning in guilt, as Bobby pressed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "What's been going on with Castiel?" he asked.

The angel frowned, the sheer picture of exhaustion. "Nothing good. Lucifer has been a tribulation, but that much we all expected- problem is, Cas has gotten into the habit of completely shutting down when things get too much for him. He doesn't seem to understand that if he keeps stressing his vessel the way he's doing, he not going to be able to wake back up."

"By shutting down-" Sam began, clearly in want of an explanation.

"He's quite literally switching ever sense of his off. Not just his celestial ones- he's stalling his breath, dropping his pulse, reaching an almost dead state to avoid Lucifer."

"You mean to tell me Cas' is turning into a vegetable so he can stop the hallucinations?" Bobby asked in disbelief.

"That's about right, I'm afraid."

"And where have you been during all this, huh?" Dean accused hotly, temper rising with the horrible news.

"I'm sorry? Where have _I_ been, you ingrate? Where exactly have you been, all this time, hmm?"

"You should've done something to stop this before it became a habit-"

"And _you_ should've learnt how to pick up your messes before the devil got into his head, mate, but I suppose you know a lot about not pulling through when you're most needed, don't you?" Balthazar shot back resentfully, a vicious edge in his voice. The Winchesters may have been his brother's weak spot, but they certainly weren't his. Not after this.

"You son of a bitch-"

"Dean," Bobby warned, "don't do anything you're gonna regret-"

"You mean I'm supposed to put up with this dick?"

"I mean, he just saved us from being a meal. We don't need to be making any more enemies."

"Balthazar, what can you tell us about what happened back there?" Sam asked, hoping to change the focus away from his enraged brother, "All those demons back there- that had to be at least two dozen. Something must've gotten their attention."

"I can't be certain," Bathazar said, "I suspect it has more to do with Castiel's presence, but that demon you left with him isn't the first I'd rule off the suspect list, either."

"She swore she wouldn't do anything-" Dean began,

"Pardon me for not putting my confidence in the word of _demons_." Dean was immediately silenced. "I'm not stopping by here just to play babysitter. I came to you lot because we need to speak before it's too late- those buggers are going to be making their way back here soon- we're going to need a bit of cooperation from you all."

"We?" Dean interjected,

"Gabriel, Castiel and I- _do_ keep up, I know it must be hard for you,"

"What the fuck is your problem?"

"Guys! You said you were in a hurry, right?" Sam added, annoyed. "You mean to say that Gabriel's back, too?"

Balthazar grimaced. "Yes. We're going to need to bring Gabriel back before Castiel gets any worse- as it stands, he's been too weak to connect with a vessel. Gabriel's the one who helped Bobby evade death- if we can just get him back on his feet, he'll be strong enough to-"

Suddenly, a blur of wood-brown zoomed past the quartet, smashing violently against the room's far-away wall. Now, where the door once stood, was a cloud of dust and steam, and through the dirty-opaque fog stood a group of figures. The four men exchanged shocked glances for a moment, all backing away slowly as the legion of demons cackled from across the hot room. Sam felt the boiling-hot scorch of a steam pipe burn against his leg and immediately jerked back- between the murderous crowd and a wall of burning pipelines, the brothers were stuck.

"And _that's_ our cue," Balthazar smiled nervously at the startled group. "Boys, I believe you're the experts at the demon wrangling?"

"You expect us to do something about all of them?" Sam asked, baffled.

"I can't do very much, especially not with a party of twenty, here. There's no other way-"

"You've gotta have something! You can't just leave us here!" Bobby called.

"Balthazar, you asshole, if you leave us behind I'll kill you myself," Dean yelled when the angel stood, unstirred by the ghost's reasoning.

Balthazar cringed at Dean's threat, turning to the brothers in hesitation. Then, a loud clang! caught everyone's attention- with a sudden start, one of the legion leaped forward and grabbed at the closest body he could. With Dean's shirt wrenched tightly in his fist, the demon grinned wickedly. Before a single sound could rip it's way out the hunter's throat, the demon pulled him forward, ready to force his bared teeth down on the flesh of his exposed neck. He inched closer, closer, in a matter of instants and before his mouth could make contact, the man's head fell back with a loud crack- a blur of red flying through the air, thrown with all the might Sam could muster when he found the rusty tool on the floor beside his feet. Dean looked back at his brother only for a moment in surprise, before wiping the shed, splattered blood off his cheek and quickly taking out his blade. Another demon fly forward, met with a quick and precise jab at the stomach.

Bobby watched as the brothers began to fend for themselves, unable to help. Beside himself with anger, but vigilant enough to know that they weren't going to make it anywhere at this rate. As the two continued, quickly joined by Balthazar who, though slowly, was adamant about smiting any demons he could, Bobby noticed something from the very corner of his eye. A fight, he saw, in the very back of the crowd- a woman struggling against a man. Her darkened eyes gave proof that she wasn't human, but the ghost couldn't fathom what was going on- if they were here for them, why fight each other?

A burst of steam ripped out of a damaged pipe and the brothers coughed painfully in reaction. Bobby rushed forward, a strange feeling but one he was becoming better and better at swallowing down- then, he caught a single glimpse of it. The man ripped the woman up and, suddenly, transformed into something much more haunting- opening it's mouth to reveal rows upon rows of teeth, a different sort of creature entirely.

"Balls-" Bobby murmured before yelling to the younger men behind him, "it's a leviathan!"

The brothers pushed through a row of now-corpses, and looked to what Bobby was gaping at- a single leviathan single-handily cannibalizing his way to the front.

"If you've got anything up your sleeve right now, Balthazar, now's the time to use it," Dean wheezed out, panicked as the steam continued to pile, blinding him.

"Stand beside me!" Balthazar called out from the nothingness, "everyone, get to where I am. We've only got one shot at this if we want to make it out of this alive!"

"Sammy? Sam! Where are you?" Dean called out desperately, before a large hand grabbed onto his arm and pulled him forward. Dean immediately struggled against it, trying to jerk away.

"I'm here, I'm right here!" Sam replied, now painfully close and loud in his ears, "it's me! Hold onto me! You got Bobby?"

Dean patted his pocket, feeling the canteen's shape in his jeans. "Yeah- yeah, I got 'em."

"Balthazar, we're set- whatever you gotta do, do it fast!"

Jumping out of the thick fog, the leviathan appeared before them and menaced forward quicker than they could follow- then, a shaking arm reached out and touched Sam's chest. The taller man immediately recognized it as the angel's hand and before he could call out, before he could voice any concern or fear at the sight of the Leviathan rushing towards them, a deafening noise burst forth. The sound of a horn, louder than anything he'd ever heard, bellowed throughout the air and shook him, disorienting the younger of the Winchesters. He saw nothing. Heard nothing. Just felt the rushing pain, the excruciating ache in his head. In the searing pain of the noise, in the midst of crouching down in gut-reaction to the ear-numbing ring, he imagined the pain being akin to what it would feel like if he had been thrown right in the middle of crashing, thundering storm clouds. Everything began to shake, and as a flash of light filled the room, the Winchesters could make out just vaguely the sight of the walls around them crumbling down, crashing within themselves and rapidly tumbling down. Then, everything went pitch-black.

He tried to open his eyes. He failed. He tried to wrench his eyes open. He failed. But the air was clear now. Clean and breathable. Sam took a deep breath and felt himself buckling downwards, arms reaching down to meet something cool, damp, and familiar- grass. Wet grass. As his sense slowly came back to him, he recognized the aroma that filled the air- the scent of fallen rain. His vision returned, and Sam, like his brother and mentor beside him, looked up to the sight before them in utter disbelief. Gone was the mangy basement. Everything now was bright and silent, a league of endless trees and rolling hills under a bright, slightly amiss sky.

"I _really_ didn't want to use that doddery old thing," Balthazar explained, walking forward and leading the way down a maze of trees. The brothers awkwardly helped one another up and scrambled to follow as the thin, light-haired angel trotted along, rubbing a palm against his ear. "Blow a single breath into that thing and you're stuck racing against the clock to get out in one piece."

He turned to them, smiling and bright eyes aglow with rejuvenation now that he was in the company of more celestial company. "Come on, now, follow along. I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but it seems we're going to be having some time to ourselves- we might as well get comfortable."

Bobby appeared beside the brothers as they followed hesitantly, their stomachs churning at a strange sensation in the air as they continued forward; something like a strange magnetism, a pull and twist of the senses like the flips of the stomach as an elevator plummets. Sam squinted, unable to look up to the sky in complete discomfort at its glow. Tumbling down an array of loose dirt and rocks, Sam thought he caught a glimpse of Dean's hand trembling before being shoved into his pocket- he dismissed it. He was just shaken up, is all- seeing things because of the jump into another location. He told himself that, of course, but in no way believed it.

"You can't see it, though I suspect Bobby can," Balthazar explained to which the apparition nodded in pure disbelief. "Gabriel is above us. Like I said, he's been unable to connect with a vessel. The two of us were brought back very hastily, it seems- neither of us are very strong at the moment. But, I'm not too proud to say, Castiel's been supplying us with the last bit of strength he has. It's helped, of course, but not at all for his sake. That's why we need you three-"

"Are you trying to tell me you need our help," Sam asked, "because Cas is trying to die?"

"Yes," Balthazar admitted, "Lucifer has been making a fine job of debaucher him before serving the last blow. We need you to stop him- and, most of all, because I think we all have roles to play again before the world goes up in a poof of smoke."

* * *

A/N: Okay, guys, I feel like a total loon for technically going past my weekly deadline and for fighting with this chapter through _four_ edits. I just could not get this down- and I've written anything ever remotely close to an action scene before this chapter! Now two things- excuse the cursing. When I write in Dean's perspective, I try to use less complicated words and more swearing, to fit his character- with Cas, it's the total opposite. Also, am I going too slow? I feel like I'm lingering on certain scenes too long- am I boring you, darling readers? I feel like a total turd for not moving the plotline along yet- much more to come. But blah. Tell me, please, i did something right. Review and make me feel whole. Thanks. (Also, twitter, tumblr- I have 'em. Under 'tsadde.' Go look.)


	6. Delusion of Ascension

Chapter Six: Delusion of Ascension

* * *

The two brothers, who so often carried the weight of the world on their shoulders, stood facing one another in the busy parking-lot before the hospital. "You know you're gonna have to let me go from this point on, right?" Sam assured, a light frown on his face to parallel his brother's grimmer one.

"Yeah," Dean grumbled, "but that doesn't mean I'm rushing at it, either. I don't like the idea of us being separated, Sammy. Nothing good ever comes from that- forget about the fact that angels are being thrown into this whole mess, right when I thought we had enough problems to deal with."

"We'll do alright," his brother assured, "we always have. Tell Cas I said thanks, would you? Tell 'em I'll be back soon to see how he's doing."

Dean nodded silently, not to elated to be making such promises. Even if it was on his brother's behalf, thank-you's were not the very first things he wanted to give the angel. As the two separated, Sam walking away to where Balthazar and Bobby stood the older of the two watched, crossly, from a distance. His brother and friend may have been ready to tackle their set of tasks head on, but Dean certainly didn't share the enthusiasm. The angels had explained what needed to be done- Dean would stay with Cas while Sam and the others worked to get Gabriel back to his former glory. While he played babysitter, his brother would be running errands and trying to re-enact, from what Dean understood, major angelic milestones to get through with the archangel. Simply enough. He just didn't like it.

As they vanished and he walked through the hospital doors, the hunter's heart was beating like a drum in his chest and his hands, he didn't want to notice, trembled. If he could, Dean would have turned back a long time ago- if he could, he'd do anything and everything in his power to avoid going into the small hospital room that waited for him and finally see the man he left broken when he last walked out of it. This wasn't just about facing someone who's betrayal ran deep, someone he could not forgive- this was about someone who he put in the line of fire. Someone who once was a friend, now in complete shambled for the sake of his happiness yet again. He murmured fake aliases to the cheery intern in the front desk and begrudgingly dragged his feet to the fourth floor. Standing in front of the door to Cas' room, Dean took a long, much-needed breath and braced himself.

Castiel did not look like an angel. That was the first thing that he realized- that the inattentive man that stood only a few yards away looked so starkly human, so very much like a child, that nothing divine looked even remotely akin. He looked smaller, far thinner than Dean remembered. Just the frame of him, though turned away from his focus and cast towards the bright, drawn window was enough to give proof to that. He cleared his throat as he closed the door to no avail- Castiel did not turn to look at his guest. Dean stood awkwardly still, waiting for a reply that did not come. Seconds passed by slowly and tauntingly.

"Cas?" he spoke out, as if calling a name into an empty, dark hallway. "Uh, you in there?"

The patient turned around and faced him- _at least_, Dean thought, _he's awake_- but looked surprisingly unperplexed. His dull, blue eyes seemed to calmly see through him, as if he was nothing but a fog of smoke. The hunter shifted his weight in discomfort and annoyance.

"So you're not speaking, huh? I guess that figures- I was near-by, so I wanted to visit you and see how you're doing. We've," he trailed off, discouraged when the angel turned back to the window and away from him, "we've gotta talk about a couple of things."

Another long pause. Dean struggled to keep his irritation under control- he was uncomfortable enough, he didn't need added reason to storm out, much less the silent-treatment from the crazed angel. "Listen, maybe you're upset or distracted or something- I don't know- but I kinda need you to focus here. There's a whole mess of problems out there with the Leviathans, and we need your help. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important. Cas- man, are you even_ listening_ to me?"

No response. "So that's it? You're just going to ignore me? Listen, I'm sorry we left you- but we couldn't take you with us. We just couldn't, not in the state you were in. If there was some other way, we would've tried it. But for you told hold it against us- Cas, come on, at least _look _at me!"

With that, he reached forward and gripped the shorter man by his shoulder, lightly turning the man to face him. He reacted only for an instant with a slight pull backwards, then a strange expression- a hunch of the shoulders, a defensive blink- as if bracing himself. Then, back to complete vacancy. Dean jumped off him as if the small shoulder was a hot stove. He had just lightly brushed him, but the reaction he got made it seem he had hurled a fist at his face.

"Messing with Clarence, huh? I'm sorry to tell you, he's not been a very good mood as of late," Meg joked, strolling in with a tray of pills and food. She placed the cold glass of water in Castiel's trembling hand and jumbled with the medicine, blissfully ignoring the angel's shocked face.

"Yeah, I see that- has he been not speaking to you, too?"

"Oh, no," she replied cheekily, "he hasn't been ignoring me- sorry, sounds like that's a whole different set of problems- sounds personal, actually."

"Wait, Meg-" Cas spoke quietly enough that Dean barely understood it, "you see him, too?"

Dean felt his stomach sink sickeningly as the weight of the terrified question sunk in- how could you shake someone to the core with just five short words? He unconsciously took a few steps back, pressing lightly against the wall, his eyes wide as the angel looked at him for the first time, it seemed, in a millennia. He looked at him as if scrutinizing something completely alien through a glass- as if what stood before him was something completely unnatural.

"Dean- you're here. You're _actually_ here."

"Yeah," he nodded, trying to suppress any upcoming break in his voice, "yeah, it's me."

"Take your pills, peaches," Meg reminded, nonchalantly sitting down, headphones cable dangling down her face as she made sure he took the medicine the doctors demanded he take regularly. "'Attaboy," she jokingly cheered when he did so before she took away the cup, "I'll leave you and Romeo to your sonnets, now. Don't get too frisky or they'll call me in to check up on you two, and I'm not up for any psychological scarring, got it?"

Dean rolled his eyes as Cas slowly made his way to the bed. "So how's it been with babysitter from hell over there?"

"I take it you mean Meg," he replied. His voice sounded terribly hoarse. Dean tried not to wonder if he'd been screaming a lot lately. "She's nice. I like her."

"What- seriously?"

"Yes. She changes the lightbulbs for me when they break and when she needs to, she cleans my arms. I never knew a demon could be so helpful- she makes jokes I don't get, like you do, and she doesn't like what I have to say half the time. I don't quite understand why she hasn't left yet. But she's always there when I need her."

_That_ hurt. The implication in his monotone voice hurt terribly, though the Winchester did not want to admit why. Cas had betrayed _him_, had almost destroyed _his_ little brother- _he_ didn't owe Cas a damn thing, he reminded himself. But...but that wasn't true. He fixed Sammy, and he was stuck in this crap-room for their sakes and, maybe Sam was rubbing off on him, maybe no one deserved a day in his shoes.

Cas mindlessly scratched his forearm with a slight flinch of pain, then reached to the end of the bed for a colorful cardboard box. Dean looked over his skin and immediately glanced away- damn it, the scars on those arms. The fresh lines and dots that marred that pale skin. He didn't want to be here- why did those damned angels force him to stay with Cas?

"Dean, are you staying here for long?"

"Until Sammy calls me- he's doing some important stuff right now. Should be done in a few hours."

"Good- let's play a game. Sit down," he insisted, taking out the folded board.

"Cas, I kinda came here because we need to talk-"

"You're talking right now."

"Yeah, I _know_ that, but that's not what I mean."

"You want to talk about something of import."

"Yeah, I do. We need to."

"I want to play, though. I'm tired- really tired. You'll be here long enough for us to get through one game right? The box says it should take approximately forty minutes to an hour, given the audience ranges from the age group of ten and up. You know how to play 'Sorry!', right?"

Dean frowned heavily, sitting carefully beside the angel as he rambled on about nothing, his eyes occasionally shifting to some far-away corner of the room nervously, looking at something Dean knew he wouldn't be able to see.

"Yeah," he admitted, "yeah, Cas. I do."

The angel smiled and handed him the deck of cards almost cheerfully- but something seemed so shallow about his displays of happiness, as if it was rehearsed or mechanically forced. As if he was trying to prove to an audience that he was okay. Dean grimaced as he shuffled the cards hurriedly.

"You can be green. I'll be blue- is that alright?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Dean asked, shaken from his bitter thoughts.

"Green. You can be green, right?"

"Yeah, whatever."

"Do you like green?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. It's a color. I don't mind it."

"I know it's a color- but it's a nice one, don't you think? Think about all the green things in this world that matter. The trees, the grass. Leaves. Even eyes-"

"I get it," Dean interjected hastily, grabbing hold of the small plastic pieces he was handed, fingertips brushing just slightly against cold, soft palms, "you like green."

"I really do."

"That's nice, Cas. Listen, are you up for leaving this place by tomorrow?"

"Leaving? Why would I do that?"

"Well, Gabriel and Balthazar-"

"Oh, _them_. Dean, it's you're turn. You've got to move from home, or we can't finish the game."

"We need you, Cas," Dean continued. "They think that a lot of problems could be fixed if you can only get yourself together for a while. So we need to get you out of here- it's not healthy what they're doing to you."

Castiel kept his eyes downcast to the board, and when Dean finished speaking, he slowly looked up, his eyes widening in surprise, as if shocked that the hunter was sitting beside him. He motioned towards the deck. "Oh. It's still your turn."

"Castiel, are you even listening?"

"I'm listening- but it's your turn. I took a turn, and now you take a turn, until we finish playing the game. And you haven't even moved from home. We'll never finish this way."

Dean hastily smacked the piece a few spaces forward away from the circle titled 'home.'

"Good. Now that you've moved, I move. I've got to follow your lead, you know- Meg taught me. Taking turns- when you move forward, I move forward. And if you regress, I have to hope that I do not fall back even further, or I'll lose."

The taller of the two looked at him in pure confusion, his discomfort growing stronger by the minute. "Gabriel and Balthazar told us that God might have brought you back so you can bring an end to the Leviathans. That you might become something stronger- an archangel or something else entirely, we don't know. But that's why we need you to get out of here."

"I _am_ out though," Cas hummed.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm out of home. I've been out of home for a long time, as have you- your turn."

Dean drew a card. Two. His piece landed beside Castiel's dark blue one.

"This is unfortunate."

"Exactly," Dean agreed slowly, "which is why we need you to try to shake this off as much as you can, just enough so we can find a way around Lucifer. You'll be safer that way, and if you're needed, you'll be on the scene."

"If I don't draw a card to get further away from you, I'm going to lose."

"Cas- c'mon. This is important- I know you're a bit scrambled, but we need to be on the same page here. I need to know that you can walk straight enough for you to get discharged here."

The angel drew a card and sighed. "I have to return three places back. I suppose that means you'll be taking the lead now."

"Can you promise me that you can try to clean yourself up just enough to get out?"

"Dean?" Cas asked, looking up at him earnestly, searchingly.

The hunter didn't break eye contact, cautious to here what would come next. "Yeah?"

"It's your turn."

"Cas! Enough already!" Dean shouted, angrily thrashing his arm in one sweep against the board until it flew off the table and smacked against the nearest wall. The rush of anger that ran fresh, like a flood of water ripping down from an open faucet, felt sadistically satisfying. He wasn't just angry at Cas- he was angry at the situation, at the pain, at the sight of the broken shell that sat before him with wide eyes. Castiel immediately flinched when the pieces smacked the wall, his body reacting defensively as if protecting itself from an expected blow. "Enough with the game, Cas- I'm _talking_ to you."

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"No, no you're not sorry- if you were sorry, you'd stop playing games. You'd stop fooling around- we need you, don't you get it? This isn't a joke."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, more quietly. Sorry. Always sorry. It was always 'sorry' with him- sorry when he lied, sorry when he left them, sorry when he plunged himself into a mess of black water, sorry when he looked Dean in the eyes and said he didn't know him.

"Stop apologizing! Just _stop _this, just-" he took a breath, tried to get his thought together enough to make words. "Stop telling me you're sorry when I know you don't mean it."

When the angel didn't look up, but kept his focus steadily on his lap, shaking lightly, Dean couldn't have regretted what he'd said more.

"I _knew_ it," Cas smiled slightly, "I knew it. You always get angry in the end. I knew it all along,"

"What are you talking about?"

"This is the longest I've fallen for it. I was always able to tell before- but you sound so much like him. How did you get Meg to fall for it, though? I thought she couldn't see. Even how you move- everything told me it was him. But I knew it, I knew it-"

"Cas-"

The fallen angel smiled sadly and slowly got off the bed to where the crumbled board and scattered pieces where. _This isn't how it's supposed to work_, Dean thought as he sat absolutely still, _You're supposed to get upset- you're supposed to go off on me. Tell me some nonsense about respect or knowing my place- you're supposed to fight back._ He watched, frozen, hoping for a response, for a rise in temper- he knew this was an ugly way to get Cas responsive, but his submissiveness- something he didn't count on- frightened him. He couldn't sugarcoat it, he couldn't deny it to himself; as the small, crouched figure a few feet away picked up the pieces in complete silence and trembling, Dean was frightened- frightened that more of Cas had been lost than he ever planned. He thought he could manage a few weeks. Castiel wasn't weak, he wasn't someone Dean had to worry about losing in a puff of breath, he was strong and resilient and annoyingly persistent. He wasn't supposed to break.

"I knew it, I knew it. I knew it," Dean heard. He turned to Castiel, pained, and watched from behind him as he lifted one arm, as a hand wiped eyes he could not see, and returned to his side with a slight gleam of moisture.

Castiel turned to him, the board quaking in his trembling hands. "What do you want me to do- what do you _want_ from me- what do I have to do to make you stop?"

Dean stood up, walking to his side and delicately grabbing the mess in his hands before they fell to the floor. Castiel backed up slowly, as if a starving animal stood before him, instead of a saddened friend with a broken heart. He looked on helplessly as worried blue eyes alternated between an empty space and Dean again, as Cas shook his head just ever so slightly, clearly distracted.

"He's talking to you, isn't he? Lucifer's here with us."

"Yo-you're not real,"

"_He's_ not real,"

"But-"

"Cas, don't believe a thing he's saying- it's me. I'm real. If there's anything to can believe in, it's that."

Castiel shook his head, "how can I know that for sure? How do I know you're not lying?"

"Because I'm here to help you out of this- and because Sammy's on his way, with Gabriel and Balthazar and Bobby-" it wasn't proof enough, but he didn't know what Lucifer hadn't already used against him. It was the best he could come up with.

"Bobby has returned?"

"He's a ghost. He's getting there," Dean replied, "but don't worry about that. Let's worry about you, first." He motioned for Cas to sit on the bed, to which the angel hesitatingly followed. He stared at him from the mattress carefully, sitting mechanically still and perfectly straight. Just like him, but not at all- h_ow could even how you sit change, Cas? What's happening to you?_- and aged with exhaustion.

"I've already told Balthazar I can't- I'm too weak. I've become far too exhausted to even think of-"

"We'll get to that when the time comes- you're sleepy?"

"Very," Cas admitted, closing his eyes for a long moment before starting back at him again. "But I know I must refrain from becoming unresponsive again."

"Don't you worry about that, I'll make sure to keep you awake. Sam said truck-loads of coffee did the trick."

"I don't know how you will be able to give me caffeine when I am being so closely monitored,"

Dean smiled only slightly, but for the first time during the visit. "I'll find a way- left that secretary in a puddle of drool when I walked in through the front door. Just gotta Casanova my way around and I'll have you drinking all the Red Bull and espresso you'll ever need"

Castiel frowned. "I don't understand what you're saying."

Dean laughed dryly. "Yeah, I guess something's don't ever change."

He followed Castiel's distracted attention to the window. The clouds outside ferried and seemed to foreshadow rain. Dean put the pieces n his hand on the nearby table and went to open the window. The fresh smell that the cool wind carried confirmed his suspicions. He took a deep breath, grateful that Sam wasn't by him. Their argument was a stupid one, one that left him feeling completely in the wrong- being berated by the voice of reason wouldn't have helped.

"Are you going to stay with me until they come back?"

Dean looked at Castiel, who stared back solemnly from the bed. "You sure you want me to stay, Cas? We're-" he hesitated to continue, unsure of how honest he could allow himself to be, "we're not friends, Cas. To be honest, I don't know what we are- but we're walking on thin ice with each other. And if I can't help, if being around each other is only going to make things more difficult for us to do what we need to do then maybe I need to give you some space."

"We don't need to be friends," Castiel retorted. "I just don't want to be alone. Not right now."

Dean took only a breath's wait to reply. "Okay. Okay, then I'll stay with you.

"And even if I do sleep, will you stay here?"

"Yeah," Dean promised quietly and remorsefully, bringing his chair closer to the bed, "I won't move an inch until everyone makes it back."

* * *

A/N: A short chapter. I said I was going to stick off the canon, but last week's episode dissapointed me and I wanted to incorporate a bit of it into my own writing. I had a really tough time getting through this one- partly because I'm losing a bit of confidence in how this is coming out and otherwise because it's finals week and I had several thesis papers to write and tests to prepare for. Please review! I'm seriously needing a boost in confidence- even if you just tell me you're still reading, even if you tell me what you like or don't like. Fill me in, por favor!


	7. Eyes Wide Open

Chapter Seven: Eyes Wide Open

* * *

"And you're sure this is safe?"

It was, admittedly, a stupid question. But in the face of crisis, danger, and most of all the supernatural, stupid questions happened. They fooled you, at least for a second, into thinking you could get some good answers. Sam looked at the sky above him, the clouds gradually joining and whirling round like a cyclone above his head. The giant of a man never felt so small in the face of a mass of blurring clouds and gusts of wind.

"Come now," Balthazar replied from beside him, "when has anything involving you two ever been even remotely close to _safe_?"

Sam nodded and became keenly aware of the dryness of his mouth. "So, to recap, you want me to just...walk through?"

"That's the jist of the plan, yes."

"And then you want me to go to sleep?"

"Something like that."

"Question: How am I supposed to sleep when my body's being flung across the ground?"

"When you get there, you'll know. Listen, I'm going to be beside you as long as I can be- we have proof that this worked once before. You just open the way to upstairs, and Gabe'll be back and ready to party."

Sam knew the story- the book of Genesis explains that Jacob, a kid who pulled a douchebag move on his brother and ran into hiding, stumbled onto a ladder. What made this ladder, however, so important and what brought the angel and the man to a forming tornado in the deserts of Bethel, was where it led- straight to heaven, down to earth, a one stop trip for angels to the dirt plot below. Balthazar explained that this was their only lead- Gabriel would only be able to come to earth through these means. Basically, if he couldn't make it down with his angel prowess, he'd have to take the stairs. Now, Sam found himself faced with the dilemma of re-enacting whatever Jacob had done- and what he'd done, according to the old testament, was sleep. Sam walked slowly, nervously cherishing the sense of the firm ground beneath his feet before, he feared, he'd lose it. He had to walk into the whirling terrain with faith and complete honesty- Jacob had his vision when he was in complete vulnerability. If Sam wanted a shot at doing this right, he'd need to bear all.

"You need to be completely honest with yourself-" shouted Balthazar through the heightening sound of the rushing winds, "don't raise any defenses, don't try to fool yourself in the slightest. If you're scared, admit you're scared. If you're angry or worried or whatever it is you're feeling, it's all the same. Focus on what you've kept burried and let it go- believe it or not, there's a spiritual shift that occurs with prayers, with a complete baring of the soul."

"Yeah, got it," Sam shouted back, still slightly unconvinced.

_One. Two. Th-three._ Sam counted each and every forced step forward against the natural force. The sheer strength of the airy cyclone was enough to make his skin ache at the connection. The winds took strength and grains of sands smacked his face with a violent force. He tried to make out what stood before him, but the winds grew dark and the sight before him was a blur of ground and whirring winds. Out of the nothingness, shards of rocks took flight- he could not see them, but he felt them, and the cool and subtle dampness on his cheek insured that some projectile shards has sliced their marks on his face. He rose his arms, covering himself as defensively as he could, and tried to steady the pumping adrenaline with the conscious notice of his heart drumming frantically in his ears. Fear rose and choked him, nauseousness rose and poisoned his mouth, threatening to toil his stomach. Humanity wasn't made for this- fight or flight instincts kicked in and they were definitely screaming for flight.

But Sam marched on, muscles straining for every inch forward- Balthazar, though he could not see him, promised to guard him and there were greater things at stake than broken limbs. He didn't know where he was going to, but animalistically he moved forward. The more he moved, the more he distanced himself from the start- from the beginning of everything. In his heart's eye, he recounted everything that was suddenly brimming to surface-He moved away from the pain and the sorrows of the fires, and of the lost friends, and the beautiful faces that covered diabolical intent. He did not know why he thought of things and people lost- Ruby, John, his mother, among so very many. He couldn't tell if something spiritual was to blame, or if it was his own mind playing tricks on him or, worser still, a retelling of his life before his quick and windy demise.

But his mind was filled with haunted memories, and his heart with aching nostalgias. _But what do these things mean?_ a small voice inside him wondered,_ what are you- what is this thing trying to tell me?_ The winds grow stronger, and a blur of what looked like a tree being ripped off the ground before becoming airborne brought an ice-cold terror to whisper in his ears. He felt lightness, and the inability to move forward- he fell onto the ground, holding on the nearest and largest stone by his side. Sam gripped on with all his strength, desperately calling out Balthazar's name to no avail.

"Can you hear me? I can't keep going! I kinda need you here-" he hollered out, "anytime now would be nice! Balthazar! _Balthazar!_ Can you hear me? I need your help!"

The screeching winds replied in moans and gargles. The Winchester dug his head down to his chest, eyes burning with sand and dust, face sore and burnt. Heavy breaths were drowned by the sound of the forming tornado as he thought, desperately, for a remedy. The huge stone was the only solid thing he could see before him in the fog of gold. Above him, a light he could not stand that served nothing to comfort him. Was it the sun? Or Balthazar, or Gabriel? If so, if any, why were they not helping?

His mind was hyper aware, his limbs jolt with anxiety and adrenaline. Dreaming was not going to happen- impossible. And his fingers ached terribly against the rough texture of his anchor. A small voice echoed out- _what have I even lived for, if this is the end? Oh God, is this really the end?_

What things he left undone! He laughed at the idea of school- those adolescent dreams to be a professional, to live comfortably in middle or upperclass pay. The ideas of wives and children once dreamt of, and of cars and mowed lawns. He remembered his teenaged vow to be twice the father to his children that his own absentee father was to him or Dean- what would come of that now? The thought of Dean, then- the brother he worried so much for. Would he ever find rest, or peace? Would he ever just _let go_ of absolutely everything he kept retained for years upon years- about their parents, about his choices, about bloodshed and lives lost, about Bobby. About _Cas_. Castiel- would he know that he had forgiven him long ago? Or that Sam wished with everything inside him that he hadn't taken his place? Did he know how guilty and how vile he felt for feeling so perfectly relieved, every day and night, when haunting illusions and voices only he could hear where only the thing of scorned memories?

Almost vividly, he could make out memories, bright and clear, behind his shut eyelids. Sam thought about the car trips, the miles, and the hours they had spent furthering themselves away from the angel who had become a brother to him. Sam remembered the moments Cas shared with Dean, the ones he was there to see, and how, despite the initial awkward discomfort, he felt so totally relieved to see Dean connect with someone other than himself- to prove to him that maybe, just maybe, there'd come a time and perhaps a person in Dean's life that would make the ball-and-chain relativity of the Winchesters just a bit more healthy. He thought of Cas- could almost see him. He thought of the guilt and the sympathy, the pure _shame_ in knowing his plague was inflicted on someone else who had already done so much.

"We're going to help you," Sam whispered to himself, full of conviction. His voice trembeled. "We're going to get you out of there, Cas- an-and Dean is going to stop being such a jerk about everything and-"

A gust of wind came and smashed something hard, something sharp, against Sam's back. He winced and groaned in pain. "And you're gonna make up- it'll be just like before. It'll be better than before. And we're not gonna fail you- Cas, can you hear me? We're not going to fail you this time."

Sam felt the burn in his throat and the tears swelling in his eyes. He felt the trembling and the fear of death and failing running over. The grip he depended so mortally on began to loosen. But, illogically, he had to continue. He _had_ to finish.

"We're going to beat those Leviathans," Sam promised the air, quaking with uncertainty, "I really wanna believe that, okay? We'll beat them so bad they won't know what hit them. And Lucifier-"

His voice broke, then. He didn't like it. Even if he couldn't hear his own voice in the crescendo of winds, he felt it. He didn't like it.

"We're going to beat him too. No matter what happens- I won't ever let him have me. I won't ever let him use me to hurt you, or Dean, or Bobby. No one. Even if I die trying- I'm scared, God, Cas, I'm scared of dying- but we'll find a way. Like we always do. So I need your help, wherever you are- please show me you can hear me."

He took a pause, forced his eyes open and rose his gaze to the growing blindness above. "_Do you hear me, Cas?_" he yelled, "Show me you can hear me! Cas, we need you! We _need_ you. _Dean_ needs you- more than you know! This planet _needs_ you and I swear to God, just show up, just give us you're fifty percent and- and we'll do the rest and we'll never let you go again! The war in heaven, Crowley, the devil- nothing matters! We're a family, Castiel, and nothing will ever break us apart again, do you hear me?"

He felt his fingers strain against the stone and could make out the slightest sight of blood red on his straining, burned palms. The wind ripped forward and forward, hungrily, as if desperate to swallow him entirely. Sweat, blood, tears- he couldn't make out what his was- but his face, his hands, his arms were damp and he felt himself falling, as if drowning, into the quake of emotion as he felt a pull upward. "God, I know we never appreciate you. I know we took you for granted- and what you did, we should've been there. We should've tried harder to make you see what you were doing instead of throwing you ten feet under. But if there's anything we've ever regretted- Castiel, you haven't been here. You haven't see Dean. You don't even _know_ how this has changed things- but you're here!"

It was getting so much harder to breath. The sand seeped its way into his mouth and he coughed violently. "You're here, Cas, you're back. And we won't let him break you. We won't let Lucifer or Dick or anything else try to win- we've won against the odds before. I have faith in us, I have faith in you- I just need you to help us all out. One last time. _Please_, Cas, tell me you hear me. Show me you'll try."

He didn't dare open his eyes. He felt, instead, every muscle screaming for help, for relief against the force. He felt himself being pulled in, as if dragged by some invisible giant. He felt the air being knocked out of his lungs, the debris hitting against his already injured frame. He tried. He _tried. _

"Do you hear me, Cas?" he whispered finally, swallowing with strain. Then, like falling asleep, he let go- slower than he could account for, and then in a single, rushing instant he was gone.

* * *

"Don't worry, he heard you," a voice affirmed. Sam blinked, shocked to find himself standing straight in the middle of a busy town crosswalk. Tall and rushing people walked to and fro past him and the archangel as if nothing had happened- as if the world as Sam had known it hadn't almost ended in a twisting finale. Gabriel stood before him and smiled goofily, giving him a thumbs up in clear jubilation and brimming with pride. "Good job, Sasquatch, Cassie heard you loud and clear."

"Gabriel, you're here. I- I'm _alive_." Sam took a breath of air, just then realizing he had been holding his breath. He past hasty hands on his face, neck and arms, trying to access the damage nervously. Where was the pain? the blood? The burning? Gabriel grinned and brushed his hand off his shirt arrogantly.

"No need to worry," he gloated, "all taken care of by yours truly. Can't have too much damage if I don't want Dean on my ass. Besides, your looks are the only thing you've got going for you, can't let _that_ go to waste just yet."

"You're back-"

"Yeah, I thought we established that."

"No, I mean," Sam laughed in disbelief. "You're back. It _actually_ worked."

"Of course it worked," Balthazar interjected, appearing beside his older brother, "I told you it would."

"Says the angel who couldn't keep up," Gabriel snidely joked, "couldn't get past the wall, huh? Great help you were back there."

Balthazar frowned, clearly embarrassed. "I tried, mate, really I did. I'm not as strong as I'd like to be, I couldn't muster the strength after a while. You were really letting off some powerful stuff, to be fair."

"Me?" Sam asked incredulously, "how?"

"That little confessional you did," Gabriel answered, "we didn't expect you to pray to Cas. I was waiting for you to call on me. I won't take it personally, though- it ended up working either way. I can't say if that was all Cas or if God gave an extra push, but the connection was made the moment you knocked out and I was able to form a vessel. _Geez_, it's good to back. You don't know how annoying it was trying to get through to you via rainbow, bro."

"Sorry about that- how's the stamina?" Balthazar asked, interested.

"I'm actually feeling _stronger_ than before. Crazy stuff."

"Great," Sam smiled. "We got that out of the way- sort of at the cost of my nerves, but we got it done. Can we get back to Colorado, now? I'm in definite need of some rest."

"Sure thing- we're just a hop and a skip away," Gabriel assured.

"Really? So how about we walk our way from here?"

"Not going to happen," Balthazar explained, "unless, of course, you have a pair of jet skis that'll take you across the Atlantic."

"Where are we?" Sam asked, taking a shocked look about himself and realizing that everything about him was written in a different language.

"The Netherlands, no biggie" Gabriel explained easily, waving the thought away easily. Then, putting a hand on Balthazar and Sam's shoulders, he smiled up at the two confidently. "Just hang on, boys, we've got a family reunion to get to!"

With a gust of wind and a flap of the wings, the trio were gone.

* * *

Another short chapter. Sorry if this transitionary chapter was boring, it was sort of necessary. And besides, I liked exploring the brotherly dynamic between Sam and Cas. Next chapter, we'll all get a glimpse at some much-missed Dean and Castiel bonding time. By the way, thank you all so very much for all the reviews. They really made my day and kept me strong through finals week. Finally done with my first year of college! Thanks again, I hope you enjoyed, and please review!


	8. Profoundly Unbound

Chapter Eight

* * *

"Alright, so if you could be invisible or read people's minds, which would you pick?" Dean read aloud from a small, indigo books in his hands, his feet plopped up onto the bed.

"That's rather redundant. If you spend enough time listening to someone without their seeing you, you'll most likely find what they've been thinking," Castiel reasoned seriously.

"Right, but if you could only- okay, never-mind. Next question. If you could go back in time to any point in history, where would you go and why?"

"I've done it before- history is quite repetitive."

"Yeah, but just pick a time."

"Why?"

"Because it's _interesting_, Cas. Just pretend, if you've got to- normal people can't travel through time. Me, I'd pick the 1850's."

"Why?"

Dean shot him an incredulous look. "The Wild West- _need I explain_? Anyways, I'm the one asking the questions- you've gotta answer."

"I...understand. Well, ancient Greece was by far one of the most fascinating pinpoints in human civilization, but much because of their corruption and their continuous line of psychopathic emperors. And since most of Europe by the 14th century was rotting from the affects of the Bubonic plague, not to mention the array of mongol tribes that spent their time raping and pillaging the towns they burnt to the ground-"

"Cas," Dean interrupted, "a _good_ time would be ideal to mention right about now."

"The Renaissance was interesting enough."

"Renaissance it is- if you could be any _food_ which would you be?"

While he argued to Castiel that a lifetime as a cheeseburger would never be as remotely phenomenal as that of a pie, Dean was happy to be allowed to focus on something besides himself. Stupidities, really, but that was enough. He had been spending hours with the fallen and tired angel, dealing with fits of nerves and violent reactions to the cocktail of drugs he was being given on an almost hourly basis. As if that hadn't been enough, Castiel had completely lost focus for a good while, his mind completely off the radar- and by the time he'd come back to earth, Cas was looking paler and worse off than before. Without request, his protective instincts took over- the day almost completely spent and the sun had long since set, but the hunter decided to stay for as long as need be. Dean was nervous, of course, about his brother and Bobby, but was assured they'd return soon- apparently, Cas had it under control. In the meantime, he kept the angel company as they entertained themselves with shared stories and idle conversation. Dean explained, for example, why classic rock never loses its magic. He shared stories of Sam's stupidest trip-ups when they first started hunting, and, occasionally, Cas recited jokes that, he assured him awkwardly, were hilarious in Enochian. All in good measure- but after a while, they both agreed that the jokes would be left to Dean.

"Sorry to interrupt your sleepover, girls, but I come bearing gifts," Meg smiled condescendingly as she pushed a cart through. Green eyes glared resentfully as they followed her across the room. Crossing his arms, he watched the demoness as she dealt with the medicine and water bags that serpented their way through needles and unto Cas' skin.

"Relax, I'm not _poisoning_ him, I'm just doing my job."

"Thank you," Castiel quietly added.

"You should tell them he doesn't need all this trash- if anything, it's just making things worse. But you already know that, don't you?"

"Dean," the angel warned, slowly and softly, as if calling him back. Dean turned to him with a face of pure disbelief.

"She _knows_ that, Cas. She's not helping you, she just doesn't give a shit enough to do things right."

"If you have so much of a problem with how I play nurse, I'll leave the role to you, 'kay?" Meg shot back, throwing a tray of food on the table beside the hunter, leaving it to loudly smack against the table. Castiel's wince, his hunched shoulders and quickly shut eyes, did not pass unnoticed. Dean clenched his jaw and swallowed the furry of curses that rose to his mouth. "Look, I just need to know when your tea party is going to be over- If your planning on having a sleepover, I've got to find a way to make it happen. This isn't a motel, if you haven't noticed, it's a looney bin, and though I'm sure you're a perfect candidate for admission here, until you come in on a stretcher, no free beds and square meals."

"I don't know when we're finishing. I'm still waiting on Sam, you're just going to have to stall for time."

"I've already stalled for time,"

"Then stall some more!"

"Dean-" Cas reminded, "you needn't speak to her like that."

"What is it with you-Why are you defending her?" Dean asked in agitation, "are you forgetting what she is? What she's done?"

Meg sighed in annoyance and made her way out, shutting the door with loud irritation on her way out. The two did not look her way, but kept their eyes fixed on one another- he looked into the blue eyes for an answer, an explanation. Castiel didn't keep his heart on his sleeve, but something was always conveyed in his eyes, something familiar but intangible all the same, that made Dean rarely want to look away until he could grasp what he needed to know. When Dean found himself caught in the stare, it was as if he was staring at letters to a language he vaugely knew- not distinguishable enough to know what was being said, but drawing enough to make him willing to try. The familiarity was short-lived. Castiel broke the silent conversation, lowering his eyes to the floor guiltily. Dean watched as his irises darted to and fro, as if focusing on a million things all at once. He sighed. This isn't what either one of them needed- he knew that. With a slight shrug, he silently dropped the subject, his entire stance loosening with his lost agitation.

Silence. Castiel found himself almost fearing looking up- not only because of the illusions, but, much more importantly, it had grown quiet for some time now. He felt numb and disoriented- had he left? Would he leave? Was he leaving? He found himself frightened that what he would find with risen eyes would only cause pain. Yet, all the preamble for nothing. With surprise, the angel took in Dean, sitting just as he was- legs extended, feet against the frame of the bed, questionnaire book now nestled on his lap and both hands dealing with the food tray. He opened it to find a stale looking sandwhich, a carton of juice, and a glass of water. The bare minimal. Even so, with a shrug, Dean took what he could.

He spoke between long chews and forced gulps. "This," he declared before another half-minute of chewing, "is a _sad_ excuse for food. Want half?"

Cas shook his head no and watched him, almost warmly, as he ate with disdain. If he couldn't eat it, Castiel knew, it _must've_ been terrible. Of course, taste wasn't the only factor that brought about his decline- the image of Lucifer that Dean could not see smiled up at him from the furthest corner, ready to bother if need be. Castiel tried not to show his exhaustion, restraining his line of vision to the bedsheets he held in tight fist-fulls. Dean lowered the plate and mock-threw the musty bread concoction down onto it. "Nasty-ass sandwhich. When we get out of here, we're going out for some real food, first thing. Leviathans or no Leviathans, burgers come first even if I have to kill the cow myself."

"I would like that," Cas quickly affirmed, making Dean hyperaware of how simply and completely grateful he sounded, all at once.

"After all this bullshit, I think we all need some good food and a break. You can take my word on that, we're going to take a breath before jumping into the next hunt."

"Your concept of relaxation does not soothe me," Castiel teased monotonously, "as it usually involves an alarming degree of iniquity."

"Just because I took you to some sleazy joint that _one_ time-"

"I was so _confused_," Castiel remembered, donning an expression as if he was reliving the entire escapade.

Dean laughed heartily. "You were confused? That girl you were with left that room three shades paler. I think you made it out of there pretty okay on all accounts."

Castiel chuckled at the thought. "I suppose I didn't handle the situation well. I often forgot what was socially acceptable amongst you all."

"You're saying that in past tense as if you've learned something, Cas. You're still just as completely off-limbo as the day we met. _God_, I still remember how she screamed."

A light laugh filled the quiet room. It was still a reserved laughter, Castiel knew, still constrained and measured- but it was genuine, and reminiscent of better times, and the smile that the angel felt himself make felt almost alien. He'd done so much screaming, so much trembling- to think that what felt like a ghoulish prison could be cured, even for a moment, by simple conversation. He was blown away.

Castiel looked away, towards the window, paying special attention to a nest of birds in a far away tree. "Dean, everything had changed."

"Yeah," he agreed slowly, slightly thrown off by the observation of the obvious.

"Things are not what they once were."

The young man took a slow bite and shook his head. "If it's one thing I've learned, it's that things never stay the same for long."

"But everything- everything I once knew, or believed in. Everything I counted on. The garrison, God, my place in heaven, and-" _you_. Castiel swallowed the last, most important thing before it rushed out of his mouth. "I...don't have anything anymore. I've lost it all." Castiel tried to remember happier days- times he spent with the Winchesters truly enjoying every moment of them, but they pained him and tasted bitter in recollection. "I need to know something."

"Mmm," Dean hummed, ready to hear him.

"I need to know if you really do want me out of here."

"What kind of question is that, man? Of course I do-"

"What I mean is- are you willing to give me a chance at redemption?" He quickly followed, like a child would interrupt a mother, impatient and in need of answers. "I know I don't deserve it- I am aware that I have done nothing to earn that chance. But when this is all done with, whatever may come, where am I to go? Will you have been able to look past my trespasses against you and Sam?"

"Don't ask me that, Cas."

"I ask only because I need to. Because if I do not make it past this, I need to know what would've been."

"No," Dean barked, "we're not talking death counts here. I don't want to hear that again. And-" he paused, measuring his words, "as for what you're asking of me, I can't. I can't tell you. There are just some things I can't answer yet. We- we're not alright yet, for me to even think about that stuff." He took a breath. "sorry," he added.

Castiel nodded slowly and disappointingly. The question was a dangerous one- if Dean had answered in the negative, it would have more than crushed him. But perhaps silence was better than a resounding no. Dean shook him from his thoughts, resorting to a half-hearted nudge of the arm to get _that look_, what he inwardly deemed it, off his face. The angel looked up at Dean, who now had the dry sand-which in his left hand and the small book in his right. When their eyes met, Dean quickly looked away and onto the letters on the page- not comfortable enough to see how long he could stand feeling like his secrets weren't his anymore, or that a part of him was almost...wholly shared with someone else.

"You know what- these questions are complete bull. Wanna see if they've got anything to do downstairs?"

Cas thought about it for a moment, a slight turn of the head followed.

"Too tired?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Dean nodded, "that's fine. We'll stay here. I'll call Sam and see where he's at. It's getting late- you'd think he was making Gabriel new wings by hand or something."

Taking out his phone, the Winchester dialed the memorized numbers and readily held his thumb over the call key when he looked up, on impulse, to a face that obviously had something to say. "Anything on your mind?"

"I wanted to know if we can keep talking-"

"About what we were saying just now?" Dean asked, his tone cautious and clearly unenthused.

"No," he said, "about anything. I want to continue speaking."

Dean glanced back at him, not expecting the response he received. He shut the phone, banishing it into his jean pocket. With a look back at the nearby cup, a silent offer to Cas which was quickly declined, and a nod, the hunter extended the book to the smaller of the two and sat back. A bite of the sandwhich and a gulp of orange juice- it's the only way to eat this dirt, he'd later explain- and he was ready. They weren't friends. At least, Dean didn't think so- what they separated as was something gray and murky and as ugly and indistinguishable than the black, thick ooze that led to that lake. But maybe right now, there needn't be any thoughts of friends or enemies. Maybe he'd be fine, for a moment, not having definitions. Right now, they were company- maybe that was good enough for the time being.

"Alright," he told him, "I'm all ears."

* * *

A/N: Okay, short chapter. I updated rather quickly because I'm having a sick day and I thought giving a peak at what Cas and Dean were doing while Sam was having a near-death encounter would be nice. To everyone who's cringing at how douche-ish Dean has been, I hope this chapter helped. I really wanted to convey him letting up, despite himself. And don't worry- the forgiveness chapter will come soon enough. Please review! If you want quicker updates, tell me so!


	9. Misery Loves Company

Chapter Nine

* * *

Sam led the angels down the narrow hallways quickly, rushing to reunite with his brother. The ladder to heaven had been forged, and Gabriel's vessel was created along with it. The procedure was exhausting, but he hurried on all the same, anxious to continue their mission. He scanned the halls- relatively empty. Perhaps for the better, he thought. He didn't like returning to the mental institution enough as it was; familiar, ill faces would do him nothing but harm. He turned to the angels behind him-

"Remember" he warned, "we need to stay calm and realize he's going through a lot. No matter what we see in there, we've got to be as supportive as possible." The brothers chuckled, equally amused by the tall man's attempt at prompting. Sam's passed a hand against the nape of his neck, embarrassed, and gripped the doorknob with the other. With a deep breath, he silently opened the door. Then, his mouth slacked agape. Dean and Castiel hadn't noticed when they entered- both, it seemed, were asleep. Castiel, eyes closed and hands folded neatly on his lap, looked like the very image of tranquility. Dean, all the while, slept slouched onto the bed where he sat, head over folded arms and pressed against Castiel's extended, sheet-covered legs. When the door shut behind the gang, Dean stirred and instantly jumped upright, eyes wide and face reddening in mortification.

"You know, I was expecting heavy sobbing. Wailing, screaming, uncontrollable streaking," Balthazar explained, "but I really didn't see any cuddle fests coming."

"The family's always the last to know," Gabriel laughed,

"_Don't_," Sam hushed in warning.

"Oh, come on-" the shorter man replied, "what about being as supportive as possible?"

Dean glared at the group, dazed but awake. His hair pointed out messily, his shirt crumbled from where he had slumped over- when Sam and the otherworldly gang came in, they expected arguments or awkward silences. Instead, Balthazar so-cleverly explained at the door, they 'walked straight into a cuddle fest.' Dean cleared his throat, trying to straighten his appearance as much as possible.

"Shut the hell up, okay? I just fell asleep. You guys took hours- He was telling me about how to write Enochian or some shit like that and-"

"Dean," Sam sighed, "it's okay. You _really_ don't have to explain."

"Yeah, I'm sure this isn't the first time Sam's caught you two sleeping together," Gabriel teased, eyebrows wagging while Dean sucked his teeth in annoyance.

Castiel looked towards his brother, confused and slightly disgruntled- he hadn't been asleep, but he was at peace. Focusing on Dean, be it the sound of his steady breathing or the rise and fall of his curved back, allowed him a distraction. And distractions, he knew far too well, were often hard to come by. "Gabriel," he spoke, "I see that you've found your vessel."

"Right you are," the elder replied, "all thanks to Winchester numero dos, I'm back and in for the count. Now we just gotta get you on your feet and off we go to take down the Levis."

Castiel immediately tensed. Dean watched worriedly as the angel immediately went from calm to anxious in a matter of seconds. "I have already told you," he began softly, "I cannot and will not fight. As it stands, I will serve more as a hinderance than as an aid. It would be for the best if I use whatever grace I still have to help you now, then to perish and take whatever assistance I could have offered with me."

"_What_?" Dean let slip, completely dumbfounded. Castiel cast him a quick and guilty look before turning his gaze to his kneading hands.

Balthazar frowned. "Your feeling weak wouldn't be a problem if you weren't intentionally straining yourself- healing everyone in the facility, lending your grace to us. Christ, using whatever power you have left to create Jacob's ladder- you're doing this on _purpose_, Cas."

"What else can I do?" he immediately replied, defensive, "sit idly with Satan as company? The least I can do is set as many things right as I can, after what I've done to us all. Do you not understand that? I have single-handedly brought ruin to each and everyone of you. What can I possibly do to compensate for my sins? Even if what I'm doing is as mindlessly insignificant as curing illness or answering idle prayers, knowing I can fix anything is the only thing keeping me sane."

"But we need you," Sam insisted. "Cas, we can't do this without you,"

"You will manage- you always do. I cannot help," the angel quickly negated.

"That's bullshit," Dean argued, now angered and pushing himself away from the bed, "It's not that you can't. It's that you won't. Nobody's holding you back, Cas. The decision is yours and you're the only one responsible for not making it."

Castiel immediately flinched at the rise in his voice. He nervously pulled on the sliver of white paper that encircled his wrist. Castiel was tired, exhausted, thin enough to be snapped in half. And, worser still, he was pained. Dean's immediate remorse was not a fleeting one and the temptation to apologize almost stood ground- but he quickly and forcefully shook it off, letting bitterness instead take rein.

Gabriel walked to the foot of the bed, arms crossed over his chest. "Cassie, we've only got one go at this- you wanna die, you can die trying. Right now, bro, against the Levis and Luci- We can't do this alone and you _know_ that. Time to put on your big boy undies and help us hit the baddies where it hurts- and the first step starts with shutting Lucifer up."

Castiel looked at Gabriel in surprise. He was listening.

"Here's the game plan- I'm going to make a wall," he explained, "kinda like what you did with the big buy over here, but better. Instead of trying to make our walls out of straw, we're gonna be using bricks- for that, we need my strength and a bit of soul to give it some kick. We've figured something out, Cas. There's something special about you- you're much stronger than our brothers. You've been brought back from the other side by Dad Himself for who knows what reason, three times. And now, you're going through yet another change. Either God really has the hots for you, or something's going on behind the curtain- Lucifer knows that. Being inside you, he must know that more than any of us put together. So I'm thinking he either wants to use you just as you are or turn you over to the dark side, and we gotta work our hardest to not let either happen."

"But why?" Castiel asked in response, "why me?"

"Yeah," Dean echoed, "wasn't Sam supposed to be his vessel? I mean, that's what made all this drama in the first place- some crap about being the chosen one, having it all written in the stars and whatnot."

"Yes and no," a gruff voice replied then. The crowd turned to the furthermost corner. It was Bobby, staring back at the crowd with a signature frown and a gallop of ancient texts in his arms."Been doing some research," he explained with a shrug at the first immediate glances to the books in his hands, "but besides that- I'm siding with feathers. Maybe he doesn't need Sam anymore- maybe Castiel is a good enough ride as is, seeing as he's been breaking the code of normal angels for a while now. Point is, we can't keep our eyes of 'em and the best thing to do is have him set on our side than up for grabs as Satan's nuke-to-be."

"This wall, though," Sam spoke, "it's going to be fragile, isn't it? What if it breaks- what if it's not strong enough and he ends up worse than before?"

"That's a chance we'll just have to take," Gabriel replied. Balthazar and the Winchesters cast worried glances at the angel in unintentional unison.

"Hold up- you're making him decide between a wall that might screw him even more over or become Satan's chew-toy and all you can say about the risks is that it's a 'chance we'll just have to take?'" Dean argued, much to the room's surprise.

"What would you have us say, then?" Balthazar replied.

"Say you have a better plan- say you can do something concrete. Don't come to us with guessing games and expect everything to just work out!"

"Us?" Balthazar repeated, "'_really_? Forgive me- maybe something's slipped past my understanding, but weren't you the first one trying guilt Castiel into making this decision?"

Dean was taken a back. He glanced at Sam who's half-frown and shrug said enough- Balthazar had a point. "Yeah, well," he argued, "that was under the assumption the decision wasn't half-assed."

Before Balthazar could interject, Castiel jerked forward and hacked aloud, vomiting a dark mess onto his hands.

"What the hell? _Cas!_" Dean immediately jumped to his side, hands clamped to his shoulders as the angel continued to spit out blood. "What the hell's going on? What's wrong with you?"

"Lu-" he gagged, "_Lucifer_-"

"He's doing this to you? Cas-"

"_Ugh-_"

"We gotta do this quick," Bobby announced, "I'm thinking we forgot that Satan's got ears."

Dean looked at Castiel desperately as everyone beside him shuffled about and into a noisy blur. The angel, now, was covered in blood, his white clothing and bedsheets completely drenched in crimson. The sickening metallic-like smell filled the hunter's nostrils and he felt his stomach churn as the liquid continued to spill out from the angel's mouth without remorse- Castiel slumped downwards, the loss too much already, and then the group saw in unison a double threat- Castiel's fingertips were stained scarlet-red- he'd kept silent, and they had been all too preoccupied to notice when he began to fidget or tear at his skin moments prior to the vomiting. Gabriel appeared at Castiel's bedside in a breath's wait, hand over his head. Light began to fill up the room slowly, warming the air and paining the eye. "We need to be quick- you feel him, don't you? Lucifer's trying to get you out cold, am I right?"

Castiel nodded with a painful wince, hand going up to his face in reaction to a sickening pain. Dean and Sam looked on in shock- quicker than they could account for, Castiel looked as if he the life was being drained out of him.

"Lucifer's trying to get through. I'm thinking he's trying to force his way into possession, even if that means tearing up Cas' vessel to do it- we've gotta move quick."

"Wait, we don't know if it's going to work-" Sam began,

"We don't have _time_ to worry about that!" Gabriel argued, motioning to his younger brother. "Luci's pissed off. It doesn't matter if it doesn't work completely- we're buying time and, right now, that's what we need!"

Castiel bent forward in agony, a weak and pained whimper escaping his trembling frame. "I ca-can't," he wheezed out, "no, no, no. Stop- I can't do this."

"Who's going to do the honors?" Gabriel asked, looking at the Winchesters. "I need some help here."

"I can't," Castiel begged- wether to the brother who was trying to heal him or the brother only he could see, no one could be sure- "I can't. Stop, stop, stop."

"_C'mon_, guys, I need some help!" the archangel reminded. Sam shook awake, tearing his panicked focus away from his friend and onto the angel. "Me," he pronounced solemnly, "I'll do it. Just tell me what to do."

"_No_, you're not doing this Sammy," Dean interrupted, looking up from Castiel with a fierce anger in his eyes, "_I'll _do it."_  
_

"Dean, I'm the one who got him into this problem; this wasn't his fight to begin with and-"

"Shut up, Sammy. I'm doing this and that's not up for negation," he snapped. "Gabe- do it. _Now_."

"Gotcha," Gabriel nodded, bracing himself. Then, palm pressed against Dean's stomach, began his chant. A bright light filled the room and glimmered in Gabriel's drawn back hand. The very sight of the blinding glow felt so utterly Dean's that it felt almost as if the shorter man had stolen something frighteningly intimate from the hunter. For almost a moment, he felt a strange obligation to snatch back whatever it was Gabriel had taken.

"Is th-that my _soul_?" he wheezed out, arms clutching his burning torso.

Gabriel pressed the light into his palms, struggling to maintain it in the cup of his hands. "Yes and no," he said shortly through strained breaths. He forced his hands completely down, and when Dean pictured his soul being flattened like clay in his palms, his heart involuntarily skipped a beat. "Imagine your soul being a big ol' christmas sweater, Dean-o. And thi-_this_-" and to that, the force of light fought back, brought the small hands to crack before smothering down on it again and making Dean feel nauseous, exhausted, and hyper-aware in a single breath, "this is just a teensy, tiny thread. Just a bit- not big enough to cause any damage, but showy enough to show a tear if you look. You'll be fine- him, though, that's the tricky bit."

To that, Sam rushed towards Castiel, bracing his arms about him and helping the unconscious angel to an upright position. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"Dunno," Gabriel replied honestly, "it could do anything- let's test this bad boy out."

With that, Bobby opened one of his books, reciting in Enochian the incantation they would need to build a wall against the Devil. Balthazar held in his hands, seemingly out of thin air, a bowl filled with clear, glistening liquid- a mix of herbs and artifacts to power the spell. It was clear, then, that everyone was giving their all in this impromptu fight for Castiel's sanity and life. Then, Gabriel pressed his cupped hand on his brother's chest, pressing the light onto his skin. Dean tumbled, his knees giving out, feeling the ache of his strengths rushing out of him- Balthazar had once said souls were more powerful than he could imagine. If this was just a thread- well, any other time he would've sported a smile of bravado. At the moment, he was quaking in his skin.

He took a long gasp of air when the archangel had finished his work, rubbing his hands together as if he'd been pulling rope instead of handling a spirit. Dean sat down weakly on the hospital bed, Castiel speedily laid beside where he sat onto the mattress. He watched tiredly as the unconscious of the two took heavy and strained breaths, and shuddered slightly as the feel of Castiel's warm blood sticking against his skin.

"This better have worked," Dean panted, "this crap better be worth it- 'cause I'm not letting you take any more where that came from."

Even so, Dean could feel it had worked. That each tight pull of his lungs has done it's work. He sighed and covered his eyes with the balls of his palms. He could feel that things were different, that the being beside him is stronger- like a force (_force_, Dean remembers, a _presence_. That's what Cas was, really, in the start of it all. Incredible how little he knew was ahead when we told his brother and their psychic friend about his first encounter with Castiel) made anew.

He does not say it to his brother or his surrogate father, and he knows well enough that he wouldn't be able to explain it even if he wanted to- but for a short while, before the sensation fades, each fall and rise of Castiel's chest is shared with him. For a short while, the hunter is frightened by a shared connection in eye movement, in fidgeting, in the very blood rushing through their veins. The heartbeats drumming in his ears, he knows, are not just his alone- they are echoed, they are louder, they are two in perfect unison. But the feeling fades once his soul has completely dispersed into the angel's grace and dried like cement in the spiritual wall they have built- but for a short while, the two secretly share a thread of something so fundamentally his that the separation between their two entities is almost unintelligible for the longest while. Nothing Dean ever felt could compare to to notion of feeling so united, so horrifyingly whole. When he allows himself to realize that, he's appalled at any of its implications and wonders, then, what they must look like to the family and comrades in the small hospital room- but the thought is quickly forgotten.

He is both too hyperaware of absolutely everything their bodies are doing, and too frightened out of his freakin' mind to care.

* * *

A/N: I've realized something about myself- when I lose faith in myself, I can't write. I've wanted so badly to make this fic perfect and make it enjoyable for an audience, that I completely lost par with myself and felt inept to do anything right- isn't that stupid? Three or four weeks behind after so much consistency because of a stupid loss of confidence. I'm going to fight through, though. I want to prove to myself I can finish something- and while we're on hiatus for a glorious eighth season, I want to help us all through withdrawal.

I've got to depend on myself for confidence. I can't base my entire writing ability on other's opinions- but some reviews, thoughts, and feedback would seriously help me build up my mojo again, I think. And that'll get me writing more stuff, more quickly. So please hit that review button for me, I just really need a boost!


	10. Though Dawn Has Come

Chapter Ten

* * *

**A/N: This chapter has been re-written and severely changed. I apologize to all my darling readers, but the chapter I uploaded before was actually a huge disappointment to me and a strong deviant to the direction I had always intended to take this story. I have Apollo199199 for helping me get my thoughts in line and motivating me to do something different. For now, I serve you more angst. Consider the past chapter a could-have-been, please, and tell me what you think. Assure me you do not hate me for what happens in this chapter, please! **

* * *

When they leave the hospital, Castiel and Dean are notably silent. The cautiousness is strange, and while Castiel is peacefully at bay, Dean stays tethering on edge. Their spiritual connection is strong, far too overwhelming for his taste- and the feeling of being so completely and utterly _exposed_ to a person was never something Dean liked, much less allowed to happen. But they marched out of the hospital in relief. Meg was eager to leave, and Castiel walked away donning Dean's far too big clothing (the only thing they had in the trunk for him, really, because Sam's shirts alone reached the angel's knees) and new found freedom.

Everything is silent, inside of him, and Lucifer is now only a memory- the horrors of torture and mental agony are now quite happily secured behind a wall of silence. When the angel thinks, correctly, that the floor of ice he treads on is thin and easily broken, Dean can easily sense his anxiety, the rush of adrenaline, the desire to run- but the thoughts are quickly brushed off, and when they are not, the hunter meets him dead in the face and the security of his expression, the stiffness of his broad shoulders, the strong lines of his frown, prove to Castiel that he will be damned before that wall cracks so early on.

"So, we've got Balthazar and Bobby back from the other side, Gabriel got his body," Dean recounts when the gang is sitting comfortably in a nearby diner well into the late-night hour, "and we've got Cas' head screwed back into place. What else is on the to-do lists before we kick Lucifer's ass?"

Balthazar takes a sip of his coffee and smiles- angels don't need to eat, he explained when this spurred questioning, but that doesn't mean they can't _enjoy_ it. "That, my friend, is under the presumption we should be attacking Lucifer first. I'm thinking the Leviathan will be an easier force to handle."

"But aren't Leviathan stronger than angels?" Sam proposes.

"That they are," Gabriel agrees between bites of omelet. Dean gawks at him critically, disturbed by the archangel's full mouth. Castiel shifts beside him, clearly uncomfortable at the mention of the monsters; That, too, bothers Dean. Castiel, completely donning his clothes underneath his musty, old trench-coat, has been relentlessly glued to the hunter's side. Standing beside him, walking beside him, sitting beside him every chance he got since the wall was formed- Dean flushes slightly when he remembers the awkwardness of Castiel's staring at Sam, standing by the car's passenger seat, until the brother reluctantly offers him his place beside Dean. He tries desperately to keep his irritation to the minimum. He knows the motives behind them- next to one another, Castiel feels as close to calm as he can be. Not quite happy, Dean knows, but not completely disheartened when he is by his side. Dean cringes at the notion of their connection and mentally waves away the recollection. If he can keep the thoughts hushed, Dean thinks, than perhaps Castiel will not know them.

"Here's what I'm thinking," Bobby offers, "right now, both are out of our league. Our best chance is to gather up our strengths until we can think up a plan- a _smart_ one. This isn't the usual routine- we don't just come in, guns blazing, hopin' for the best. This is gonna take some A-grade thinking."

"What we need to do-" Gabriel quickly drops the sentence when their waitress comes, and eagerly orders another plate, much to Dean's dismay. He offers the young, smiling woman a wink and his thanks. "What we need to do is make sure Cas is up to par. This is gonna take as much power as we can get. The garrison's are gone, heaven's a ghost-town. I'm gonna see what I can do, at the very least, but we're gonna need some back-up."

"You think Death can help?" Sam offers,

"_Death_? Are you nuts?" Dean replies incredulously.

"Hold your horses, Dean-o, I think he's got an idea,"

"What? Seriously? We're fighting for our lives and Death is our best option?"

"Calm down," Sam sighs, "just hear me out. Maybe he's got a word of advise or something, you know? I mean, he's been around since the beginning of time. There's got to be some alternatives we haven't thought of on how to beat the Leviathan or get Lucifer off our trail. Besides, maybe he's got something to offer on what's been going on with Castiel."

Dean looks about himself. Sam, Gabriel, Balthazar, and Bobby stare back at him all at once, as if the decision is his to make. In turn, he glances at Castiel, who's eyes are set unflinchingly on the ground. The angel is nervous, frightened- he wants, Dean knows, to be completely uninvolved with the issue.

"Cas, you got anything to share with the rest of us?"

"I can't do this."

"Hold the phone," Balthazar replies, "Castiel, you cannot _still_ be on this, mate. You're better now- what are you so afraid of?"

Castiel shakes his head. "I...I will only fail if I try to help you."

"But don't you understand we have no alterna-"

The angel looks up, sickly pale. "I refuse to fight."

"Cas," Dean replies roughly, voice raising, "we already talked about this-"

"But I don't want-"

"Nobody _cares_ what you _want_, Cas!" Dean interjects, slamming his hand against the table, "It's not our problem if you don't want this- fact of the matter is, I didn't _want_ Lucifer in Sammy's head, I didn't _want_ the Leviathan trying to have their way with us, and I certainly didn't _want_ you back if you were going to be more trouble than you're worth!"

The entire group falls silent. Dean doesn't need to look to his friends to know they are staring at him in shock, nor look at Castiel to know what would be waiting for him in a single glance; The sight of him would only make his guilt sharpen- he intentionally avoids his direction. The hunter can just vaguely feel the pain and sorrow bubbling up, the tinge of anger and self-hatred buried just below the surface. Then, he feels something different. A shift.

"I'm not- I can't be here," Castiel announces. Everything happens in a rush Dean turns to him, the group all rise to protest. Then, the sound of wings flapping and the angel is on the brink of disappearing all together until- _'no, you don't, you son of a bitch!'_ Dean silently protests- his shoulder is gripped by a strong and calloused hand. In the bat of an eyelash, Dean Winchester and Castiel are gone.

Sam quickly scans the diner for witnesses and praises their luck at the restaurant's general emptiness at this time of night. Gabriel raises a fork of pancakes to his mouth and chews, while Balthazar takes a sip of his drink with a wag of his head. Sam stares at the nonchalant two in unadulterated confusion.

"Uh, guys?"

"Yeah?" Gabriel asks between monstrous bites.

"Our brothers have just zapped their way to God knows where in a fit of anger- shouldn't we be doing something? Like, I don't know, trying to _stop_ them?"

"And why would we do that, exactly?" Balthazar asks.

"No point in that," the archangel agrees, "besides, this is a good thing- I don't like having those two around, too much sexual tension in the air."

"This is serious, you ass," Bobby intejects, unamused.

"We're being serious," Balthazar argues. "We know what they're capable of- it's for the best we wait this one out. You don't want to get into the middle of what they need to do right now."

"And that would be what exactly?"

"Well, Sammy, when an angel and a hunter love each other-"

"Gabriel, _come on_!"

"Look," Balthazar interrupts, "jokes aside, Castiel is ridden with guilt. There's not a thing he's going to be willing to do until he forgives himself, and a lot of that stems from being forgiven by your brother. So push has come to shove- those two going at each other is probably the best thing that's happened to Cas since who knows when."

"And why exactly can't we get involved?"

"Because," Gabriel smiles brightly at Sam as he pours syrup unto his plate of pancakes. The angel looks out the window, onto the rising sun. "Things are about to get really messy."

* * *

Dean lunged at him all at once. The two fell messily onto the dirt-ground beneath them. "What do you mean you're not going to fight?" he yells, pressing down on the smaller man's chest. "What the fuck do you mean you're not gonna even _try_?"

The angel does not respond. He only breaths, strugglingly, and stares up at Dean with sorrowful eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," he barks down at him, "say something! Answer me! Why won't you fight?"

He is silent, and the human takes a shaky breath, boiling with rage. He raises his hand then, and tightens his fingers into a ball, only to bring it down at full force against Castiel. He knows he's hurting himself far more than he is hurting the angel- but if at least for the symbolism of it all, he does not regret the strike.

Dean takes a sharp breath when he pushes off the unresponsive angel, who only flinches, but does not avoid the blows. Dean stands and brings his sore fist to his grimacing mouth. Each knuckle is aching with pain but his anger has yet to be quieted. He looks down angrily at Castiel, who stares back at him from the ground in complete defeat. His clothes is covered in dust, his face is slightly flushed from the punches.

"I'm sor-" Castiel begins as he sits up, before Dean gives him a piercing, angry look.

"Don't tell me you're sorry if you're not gonna fight," he interrupts, panting. Castiel looks away and Dean sucks his teeth, seething. "I can't even stand to look at you right now. You're _pathetic_."

The moment he finishes the sentence, Dean can feel that the angel's last strand of patience has snapped. Castiel rushes towards Dean and grabs him by the collar of his shirt, glaring at him. The contact spurs on a wave of emotional connection- all at once, Dean feels the intense anger and hurt radiating off the angel and is besides himself with shock and, horribly enough, fear. The intensity of the wrath dispelling off the angel's being is enough to remind Dean, quite horribly, that angels were once terribly revered.

"When my brothers were hell-bent on forcing you to make a choice you did not want, I bent all the rules for you. Do you understand? I went against everything I knew, everything I stood for to allow you a _choice_ and you have the _audacity_ to refuse me that same right. You, of all people, Dean, should understand that choices are to be respected."

"Yeah, well," Dean forced out between gritted teeth, "you're making a bitch-ass choice, and, frankly, I'm tired of your choices. I'm tired of you choosing wrong. Maybe there's a reason why you never could never make choices to begin with."

Dean immediately regrets what he says, and while Castiel can feel his mortification, it does not stop him. He punches him, hard and straight into his jaw.

"You showed me this way, Dean! I am simply a product of what you wanted me to be- 'make choices for yourself, Cas!'" Castiel imitates as he pulls Dean off the ground roughly, "'don't be a hammer, Cas!' What happened to that, Dean? What happened to free will? Or does that not apply when it's not _your_ will I am complying to?"

Dean coughs roughly, feeling strained about his neck where the cloth of his shirts pull at it tightly. "What happened to free will when you took those souls, you son of a bitch? What happened to free will when you made a fuckin' deal with Crowley and became God?"

Castiel pulls Dean towards him, intentionally knocking the air out of him, only to violently throw him back onto the ground. "What I did was wrong, and I was in error- but you are in place to patronize me. You haven't the slightest notion about what propelled those actions. I put you and Sam before everything and everyone that got in my way and that I learned from you- How many times did you put Sam above all others? How many times did you turn your eye from his trespasses against Robert, against you? Yet you chastise me for extending that same dedication to you,"

"Don't you dare compare what I have with Sam with you and me," Dean growls, "I didn't see any of that 'dedication' when you decided to go against us- you were seconds from smiting us every time we tried to get through to you, where was your concern then? You made a choice, Cas, and you chose to become our enemy. I didn't force you to make those mistakes."

"My _mistakes_ are all choices you did not understand or consent to, and that is what you find so deplorable, Dean."

"Your decisions killed people, Cas! What you did cost actual human lives!"

"The ends did not justify the means, I see that clearly now and I regret what I have done more than you can imagine. But everything I did was for you and your brother. _Everything_. You have no idea what I did to protect the two of you."

"You wouldn't have had to protect me so much if you had just let me in, Cas! Don't bullshit me- you keep talking about protection, like I was running on a broken engine, like I was off on some other tangent. I was _there_, Cas, doing nothing for freakin' _year_ and you're the one who chose not to involve me."

"How could I have involved you? When you have refused and rejected every thing I have ever asked of you? I thought I had things under control and when my pleight became too strong, I was desperate to hold everything together. It was not just your fate I had in my hands- my brothers, my sisters, _everyone_ in heaven was looking to me for answers. And when they expected me to lead them, I did as I knew you would have done."

"I wouldn't have done any of the shit you pulled," Dean argues bitterly.

"You would have done _worse_. And I was a fool to follow in your footsteps, to attempt to become akin to you. You are just a broken shell of man, gallivanting by a moral code you do not even abide to." Dean is taken back by this- the accusation, Cas notes, all but physically slapped him. The hunter looks to Castiel, and an instance of hurting is quickly replaced with a mask of haughty anger.

"You know what your problem is, Cas? Do you really want to know?" Dean offers from where he sits. "You _still_ think you did the right thing. That's why I can't even stand to talk about this- because you're still trying to convince everyone that you did the right thing, that you're the victim. It's real easy to pin the blame on me or whatever you think I did to you- but in the end, it was all you, and you're the only one still thinking that's up to debate."

"Dean, I strived to do the right thing- I sacrificed everything I had to assure that heaven would be a place to be suit my brethren and the world below. Raphael wanted only to destroy what he could, to eliminate anything in heaven that had a mind of its own. He wanted an army of unfeeling, unthinking machines to force you and Sam back into the apocalypse. I tried, Dean. I was going all of it for you, for the sake of the greater good."

"You made deals with demons, Cas! You took souls and your _devoured_ them, you unleashed monsters on the freakin' planet! What greater good were you working for? Just admit it- you got lost in the game! You wanted to fix heaven? Alright. But you deliberately betrayed us. You went against us. And all those times you could've come to me, you didn't. So how am I supposed to take this? How am I supposed to understand you jumping to the worst decision when you didn't even give us a chance to help? And then when you were God- the things you said, the things you did-"

Castiel looks away. "You have no idea what I had to go through to become that."

"Oh, no," Dean agrees sarcastically, "I'm sure I don't. But you know what I _do_ know? I know that you killed hundreds of people when you got your little divine promotion. I know you flipped Sam and me off to high hell when we tried to help you. And I know that you played me for an idiot when I trusted you and that you spent two years lying to me to get what you wanted. You can tell me any excuse in the world, but you know what, Cas? They're only going to satisfy you. No one gives what excuses you have to offer- You're the only one left standing willing to take the bull coming out of your mouth, and you're _half-insane_."

Castiel looks at Dean in pure disbelief. The hunter looks back, initially wanting to match his look with a glare, but something is amiss. He knows he has gone too far, that he has said something that should have never left his mouth. Dean is surprised when his once-friend looks to him, not in anger, but in disappointment. Something wavers between them, like a weak spark of electricity, he imagines, trying desperately to convey its message. The connection is becoming vaguer and vaguer, and the hyperawareness he once shared with Castiel is quickly evaporating. He feels something change again, like a resolution has been made. Castiel opens his mouth to say something, but words are not spoken. He turns, then, away from Dean, giving him his back.

A long while passes, and each moment makes the hunter more desperate, makes him wonder more and more if the wall has shattered, if Castiel is incapable of speaking. When the wait becomes too long, when Dean has contemplated thrice already what to say with no avail, the angel speaks. "This world was created by my father," he says, looking up at the hot night sky. A soft murmur of a thunderclap responds knowingly in the distance. "Everything in this world was created by God, and I have worked, unwillingly, as a means to destroy it. I owe Him no adoration, He has all but abandoned me and condemned to constant, unwanted returns. But He is my creator and I once loved His works whole-heartily and without question. I will spend my last breath trying to undo the damage I have done. I will defeat the Leviathan and appease Lucifer, by whatever means, to prevent the end of this world or the next."

Castiel turns to Dean, and his expression is cold. The human cannot feel anything connecting them, and the notion makes him hold his breath for all but a moment. Castiel is doing this intentionally, Dean knows, he is deliberately trying to silence whatever turmoil is bubbling within him and shorten Dean's perception. He feels something warm dampen his skin- _the rain_, a small voice reminds the Winchester, _it's raining._

"I am prepared to die by this cause for, at the very least, the sake of knowing I once loved this world and those in it. But I am by no means bending my intentions or decisions for your sake, Dean Winchester. As far as I am concerned, you're opinion, you're consent, and your standing no longer holds weight. I am indebted to you for forfeiting your soul to create this wall- when all is done, I will return what you've given to me wholly and completely. From this point on, that is my only compromise with you."

"Cas-" Dean begins. Despite himself, despite his anger and pride, something akin to pain and worry is streaming up to the surface of his awareness. He can tell in the angel's tone, in his posture, in absolutely everything about him, that something is ending here and now. He thinks of the coat that he kept locked away in the car trunk for months on end. He thinks of how horribly he clung on. On how he could not forget nor forgive nor live past what had been done. This one person, this angel, means, meant, so much.

The angel turns away and tosses something over his shoulder, to which the hunter catches robotically. "This is your phone. I cannot return you to where we were, but I will do what I can to leave you closest to your brothers and my own. I am confident you know how to manage from that point on by yourself."

With that and a rush of his wings, the angel has vanished. And before the man can linger any longer on the sinking feeling in his stomach, or how frighteningly alone he feel all at once, he feels himself uplifted. He lets go of a shaking breath he did not he was holding. He is gone.


End file.
